This is not about that song nor anything musical. If anything, growing up was hyperharsh and unlyrical. Bekumu had no electricity, no potable water let alone good roads from the wee 70’s up until the 90’s when I left for good. The Cameroonian fishing suburb had no space for childhood: the reason I must have hit my own age of self realisation when I turned three, or four or max, five.
I remember some personal events that happened in 1974, ‘75, ‘76 but two from my 1977 memory file should suffice. I remember vividly being taken that fateful June by Mr Inyang (now a chief) -my right hand in his left- for admission into Government School, Bekumu. Let’s say Mr Inyang was an uncle. That’s how Nigerian children address any male adult whose relationship with their family they don’t really understand.
I remember we were over 200 noisy, crying children in that fanless classroom (Class 1A) when school resumed in September. I remember the man, my first formal teacher, who had the misfortune of superintending the class. I remember him, clearly. I can see him in my mind’s eye even now.
I remember his name, but nobody can force, coax or convince me to write it here. Let’s just call him Mr N., actually one of his initials. He seemed too young, for that kind of pressure. He must have taken to cigarettes therefore, but not one day did he smoke in class or around the school premises.
Alas, somehow, his lips and sundry members of the invisible entourage of smoking gave him away. I still can perceive that in my mind’s nose. In all though, Mr N., my first teacher in primary school was better than Mr F., my first mathematics teacher in (what was then Government) secondary school, (Ekondo Titi, Cameroon). One hot Monday afternoon, the latter came to class, went to the blackboard, scribbled all those gibberish X and y jargons, strolled to the window thereafter, sat across it, took a cigarette and puffed away.
This happened in the fourth week of September in the year of our Lord, 1984. I was just 13, and only a fortnight old in secondary school! Since my father (and mother) abhorred smoking, I couldn’t for the life of me understand why a teacher would smoke in the full glare of his class! So, I intermittently stole disdainful glances at him; at some point shaking my small head!
Mr F. had spotted me. When he was done and had thrown away the dog-end, he hastened back to the board and pointed at me to solve one of the mathematical posers. That instant, the gods of Uruan Inyang Atakpo abandoned me: I not only drew blank, I also looked it. Mr F., seeing his chance for a pound of flesh, walked up to me and took it.
He knocked my head so hard with his fist that all the little love I used to have for mathematics disappeared forever. Many years later (1989) it became the only Cameroon GCE O’ level subject I sat for, in which I scored less than a C. But, that’s not the issue -as Mentor Eddy Ekpenyong would say on radio. The issue is that: quite early on, I learnt among others that evil can punish good for daring to upbraid it.
Enough on Mr F., and back to Mr N. Something else I learnt as a child about pressure. It attracts different reactions. Some smoke it away. Others chew gums, madly and carelessly -you know who, for example.
Many people under pressure buckle by resorting to violence. Most cases of domestic violence have nothing to do with hatred or the lack of love. It is just foolish venting. Such people are so sober once the pressure wears off.
Let’s make progress, without making excuses for my teacher. One day in October 1977, gendarmes (the military police in the francophone world) came to our school and took away my first formal teacher -in handcuffs. Words -especially bad news- need no electricity or mass media to spread. Mr N., accused of having taken one of the batteries powering the oil facility system located within the school premises, never returned!
Nearly four and a half decades after, I still am in search of closure on Mr N. Did my primary one classmates and I -by our sheer number and noises, etc., push our our young first formal teacher to what they said he did? I have spent a greater chunk of this space and time today on Mr N., because as I walked away from the venue of my father’s funeral last Thursday my mind raced to this same first formal teacher. The connection is that my father and my mother were my joint-first (informal) teacher.
Thinking about Mr N. offered me windows upon windows and strata upon strata to review who my father is -sorry, was. Etubom (Elder) Michael Effiong Mbaba (fondly called Udo Iyaya) a disciplinarian, fisherman, businessman, community leader and former president of Nigeria Union in Bekumu, Cameroon, was generous, courageous, helpful, optimistic and peaceable to a fault. It is that fault part as happened to Mr N. that tended unfortunately to become the hallmark of his pre-death years. Notwithstanding, my father shall, in the memory of family and all those who encountered him, forever remain a great, altruistic and deep being who even with very little education served humanity in a way he shall never be forgotten.
Furthermore, I played back and was enthralled by the chapter of my father’s life I tag humanity. He was a great leader who truly loved and sacrificed for the people, even more than his family. Drawing inspiration between his death on 4th July 2021 and his burial on 11/11, and desperate to share a lesson or two on grief, I came to see that both those who knew him directly and those who knew him indirectly through his family fall into five classes. Class One is peopled by those hitherto thought family who are so rich all they support with is money and such other sweet-nothings.
Next is Class Two that contains some of those hitherto thought close who are so big, they can’t call or sms or email let alone visit. Class Three comprises those hitherto thought friends too busy they never show up on the D-day. Then, oh la laaa, there’s Class Four in which hang those too bitter to be in any of the three under and the one above namely Class Five which occupants passed all the other classes with flying colours and still turned up on the final day. For us in Udo Iyaya House, we appreciate everyone, up and down, good or bad!
The foregoing ministers to me too, even as I plead guilty. Those grieving need more than money or gift or call or sms or email or visit or presence. They need all of all, together given in love and humility which are the realities of sympathy. This brings comfort, quickens healing and accentuates life -going forward.
So, graduating second class is dead sentence?
Over the weekend, social media carried the story of a young woman who -having failed to make 2.1 at the university- was crying and wondering how to face her father. Are there still such parents in 21st century Nigeria? Look, like life itself this country doesn’t really care if you graduated first or any class.
…To be continued next Monday