Me, My Father & I...(15) MY FATHER was very fond of his first cousin, Waribo Obiene, an industrious trader in crayfish who travelled as far as Onitsha to supply his wares. Waribo was unarguably the first man from my father’s family to have constructed a one-storey building large enough for each one of his grown-up children to have a room of their own. In all, he had twelve children, if not more. His first daughter, Phoebe, was a tall, fair-skinned lady who joined the police and grew through the ranks to be a highly respectable officer. My father used to take me on a visit to her official quarters at Victoria Island, Lagos, when she was posted there. I was quiet inside me for a long time the day I heard that Phoebe was dead. Anyway, I took a particular liking for Benjamin, the last of Waribo’s sons from his second wife. He turned out to be my close friend and confidant. His room was my regular port of call. I was always bound to meet with Benji’s wide selection of friends who would congregate in the room towards evening apparently to play and dance to the most current disco tunes in town. Benji’s room was also the first theater where I lost my virginity. Benjamin was also my classmate at Nenagram, and he did his best to make me understand mathematics. But my greatest admiration for my cousin came from his involvement with sports. He was a consummate athlete, and the youngest short distance runner of repute in college. Benjamin covered the one hundred meter dash like the wind itself. More often than not, he had been known to beat even his seniors to breast the tape, and inter-house sporting events were not really complete if Benjamin Obiene was not on the tracks. Green House was sure to pick up the trophy and a cluster of balloons so long as he was in the race. Benjamin’s meteoric speed was checked one day when, towards the end of a heated race, the bone in his hip joint pulled out with what sounded like the explosion of a Christmas knock-out. He crashed to the ground in a fainting fit, holding his waist in pain. The masseurs did their work fixing that hip, and Benji was out of action for one whole sporting season. His promising career on the field came to a close when that same bone pulled out a second time, causing him untold distress, and forcing him to become a spectator like the rest of us. Many years later, when my cousin gained admission to read land and estate survey at the famous University of Nigeria, Nsukka, I visited him on campus and he took me round to show what he knew about the ancient town. What struck me most during that visit, however, was the vast outlay of the university campus. I found myself wishing that I could study there. Benjamin was going for lectures, so I thought I should explore the campus some more. And that’s how I located the Department of English, and went in search of a poet whose fame had spread beyond the confines of Nsukka. When I walked into the office of Esiaba Irobi, he was scratching ink on a wide cardboard covering the table, adding to the wealth of doodles on it. Esiaba was practically swallowed up by huge piles of books all around him. I recognized him from the photos I had seen in the papers, and promptly introduced myself. I was suitably flattered when Esiaba waved me in with a smile, stood up for a firm handshake, and said he was truly glad to meet me. It was glorious to hear him say that he had read my poems in The Guardian, six of them, and they took him by surprise. By the time I began to regale Esiaba with a regurgitation of his own lines from Cotelydons, that ground-breaking volume of poems with a runaway “avant-gardist” temperament, the poet invited me to join him for a jug of palmwine. In many ways, my meeting with Esiaba was an eye-opener, especially when I held his books in my hand and saw his face stamped upon his words. I was in the presence of an author, one whose articles in the newspapers titillated me no end, whose poems caused me so much tickling delight. Esiaba wrote me a long letter after that visit, wherein he described Nigeria in such pejorative terms that I began to fear for my country. Here was I in the presence of a writer I admired so much, believing that I could draw sustenance of some sort from him, and here he was practically demonstrating to me what it means to lack faith. I still root for the originality of Esiaba Irobi’s poetry, but I do not share his worldview. No apologies whatsoever. Excuse me. I could do with another sip of water.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 04:13:09 +0000
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