Because of her family’s low income as a young girl, she and her siblings were not able to go to college. Despite that, she is naturally strong and spirited, though she is grossly incapacitated by the lack of tools that could have provided her with legal protection when her husband died. These tools are education, fame, or awareness.
At the time her husband dies, she has no existing immediate family or anybody that can give her protection. All her waters seem to stream from the same hole: a poor and uneducated background! The solace she once had, her husband, is beyond this physical world and cannot rescue his beloved wife from the calamity that ensues after his death.
It was actually only by the sheer luck of a beautiful providence, through love, that Susan got scooped out of poverty and lifelong abuse in the first place, when she married Fredrick, the man that loved her. He was an educated man and cherished her to her very soul, overlooking her lower status. He was dedicated to making her a better woman, taking very good care of her every need.
Fredrick Obi worked with Pathas Airlines Nigeria at the time. He had worked his first three years there as a pilot and then became a senior manager in the weather forecast and control department. He worked with Pathas for eight years before he died, and it was through his well-paid job that he had been able to cater for his family abundantly. They lived very comfortably. He was financially rewarded in his job and had invested a lot in the stock market as well as in capital assets.
Throughout their married life, Susan lived absolutely dependent life on her husband and was a full-time housewife, without any insurance or security provisions. She had nothing of her own except some tangible benefits she got from her husband, and some beautiful and expensive personal belongings. She even had a car, which Fredrick gave her as gift on their fifth wedding anniversary. At that time, Cynthia was almost four years old and Okechukwu was still in her womb, waiting to pop out at any time. She also had a bank account, into which Fredrick deposited a periodic payment for her personal upkeep and housekeeping.
Those were her kind of benefits. She was well taken care of in all her needs, and no one—neither Susan nor her husband—bothered to insure anything in her name or their children’s. They never envisaged any disaster could destroy their comfort and stability, much less any thought of the unforeseen circumstance of death that struck them.
They had a good marriage that was gliding smoothly in success and contentment—until death came calling and took the breadwinner of the family away. Frederick’s death was a big shock to Susan—and who wouldn’t be shocked! But unfortunately for Susan, the shock of her husband’s death was nothing compared to the thunderbolt of the assault she got at his sudden exit. Her earthshaking grief at the loss of her beloved was reduced to a mere shadow beside the giant but unfavorable traditions that arose after. She was stampeded back into the surprising but very harsh reality of her communal existence.
With the sudden death of her husband, Susan was without support and became a loner. She could not secure a dime from her previous wealth and property amid the turbulent assail of her in-laws. She was not even able to retain enough for the upkeep of her children’s education.
The blackness of some often-disregarded practices in her community place a woman in front of the door where the foot mats are meant to be. Some severe practices they are, but in the continued disregard and inattentiveness of the people, smartly conceal the free rein of greed and envy beneath it all. This reigns supreme in some ungodly people—and unfortunately she has such people as in-laws.
Despite her natural spiritedness, intelligence, and strong will, she cannot pull herself out of the culturally expected inferior subordination that requires her to be “quiet as a woman” and not boldly request fair treatment. Even if she did, she would most likely be ridiculed and not given any serious regard or honor.
Such is the unabashed norm of her culture. It is even enforced when one is bereaved, because it is believed that silence and peace is respect for the dead. Even when grossly mistreated, the woman is still expected to be mute.
When Susan lost all her property to her in-laws and was eventually dispossessed too, there was nothing she could do to save herself. Every argument and effort she made to restore her possessions were considered trivial and pointless, and quite discordant to custom.
As she grew more helpless in her lonely fight of reasoning and assertions, she did involve the Umuada, a local sect of indigenous women, but much help did not come from there. Because she was expected by tradition not to be heard or seen, then as a woman mourning her husband, she could only solicit their support in raising concerns on her vanishing property. However, the Umuada unanimously told her to bear all things and be a “good” woman by mourning for her husband without any colossal fight.
Susan’s mourning period was a real advantage for her in-laws. It was a period of free rein to their greed, because Susan was completely sequestered and prohibited from public interaction and loud activities. Being sequestered in mourning times is an intense practice that, if traced back to old times, might probably have been constituted in good will. But unfortunately it is often misused as an opportunity to oppress people who are weaker. And in all its potential goodwill, only the widows get sequestered—never the widowers!
Such was the custom of the land, and Susan speaking up or demanding for her right to fairness and security, even if only that of her children, would definitely have been a loud activity in that mourning time, against which the Umuada advised her, or else she might be expunged from Obi’s kinship and denied access to her children. She was to be mute and conform to the tradition, while the rest of the people that oppressed her lived with little or no care at all about her happiness or feelings. Even as she was taken advantage of in her mourning condition, the important thing to the custom was that she was mourning and should simply remain forlorn—and there were many people around her that were quite eager to enforce those rules. No strong voice in her community was bold enough to consider her view, and many relatives were rather pleased to feast freely on a wealth to which they didn’t contribute.
Such an austere practice was the order, and it paid Susan nothing but the loss of all her rightful property. She lost all, including her car, which, in the guise of being used for running errands for Fred’s burial preparations, was long gone inexplicable with Fred’s own car.
Without much breathing space to the grieving Susan at her husband’s death, Fred’s uncles—Dike, Onuma, and Onochie—attacked both her composure and her fortune at once. They struck her by surprise as they claimed everything belonged to Fred, including every tangible thing she ever owned. They claimed everything as Fred’s direct male relatives, as the only recognized next of kin in inheritance—by their tradition of course.
That left Susan completely traumatized.
Two
Fred is the son of the uncles’ late brother Ofor. Ofor was known to have worked hard during his lifetime, and that singled him out among his brothers Dike, Onuma, and Onochie, who depended solely on the meager food their deprived father, Mazi Obi, could afford for their table.
In those days, it was a great achievement for a man to leave the village to the city, and Ofor was brave to move out of the village to the city in search of greener pastures.
He achieved his aim successfully, though it was not a smooth sail. He was not educated, so he moved from place to place in search of menial jobs in the city. He found work at the postal agency as a mail dispatcher and messenger in the city, and from there he eventually migrated to the Rail Way Corporation. There, he was a happy workaholic who got adequate financial rewards. The rewards came meagerly, but that was how he succeeded until he married and settled in the city with his wife. His marriage produced an only child, Fredrick, who was his heir. However, all that was to the envy of his brothers back home in the village.
Ofor had lived and worked in the city for years before he got ma
rried, and even longer after that. At Avis Rail Way Services, he worked in various capacities, working first as an all-round messenger. Then at various times he shuffled from mail dispatcher to car washer, laundry man, kitchen assistant, and finally a janitor. Years passed, and he was subsequently promoted to the position of senior janitor until his retirement.
Having been to the fortune stream, but only able to scoop droplets in little spoonfuls, Ofor was immensely daunted but thrilled at the same time, by what value education held. He was an honest man with great energy and diligence at work. Yet he realized that his strength could not fetch him greater wealth from the fortune stream as he desired, simply because he lacked formal education.
Ofor knew that back in the village, he would be a king, not just because he would be respected for being so hard working, but also because he was a brave man. However, going back to the village would only mean employing his strength in farming, palm wine tapping, mud baking, or mat making. For a man of that time and generation, it was a surprise to register the deep, rare abhorrence in which he held such labor.
By every indication, Ofor seemed not quite cut out for his generation, given the zeal he displayed in his interest and quest for Western education and civilization; it singled him out from his brothers and the entire village.
He left the village at the age of thirty, in 1931. After twelve years in the city, he was without a wife until he met Nwanyimma. She was a city girl because she lived in that city already with her parents long before Ofor came there. She was from a different locality but of the same tribe as Ofor.
Ofor’s brothers did not support his marriage to Nwanyimma, but he married her anyway, against their support or understanding. His brothers called her “Nwanyi Mba” in mockery and objection, meaning a woman from another town, as if she was an outcast. But Ofor’s mind was made up. He and Nwanyimma got married, and Fredrick was born seven months later in the same year 1943, since Nwanyimma was already pregnant.
Ofor’s entanglement, strong love. and attachment for his wife were unbearable to his brothers. who thought he was enchanted, and they openly accused Nwanyimma of some strange, diabolic powers. Nevertheless, Ofor would not listen to them or even go back to the village, as they suggested. He stayed on in the city, fighting his own fight to acquire Western civilization.
And having seen all that poverty could not provide— civilization, good life, comfort, and happiness—Ofor mourned his losses within himself, because he could only see, feel, and touch them in service of his masters and the elites, but not on his own. Pitiably, he regretted that he was not privileged to have a formal education, which stood strongly as the sharp line between the class of civilized, rich, educated people and that of uncivilized, poor, illiterate ones. He also knew that education is only a privilege for the willing. This is why he resolved that he would give education as his own gift and to his only heir, Fredrick.
Since it is good to be true to oneself and dream dreams no matter how high and impossible they might seem, Ofor merely imagined that since he ended up in the railways, his son would end up in the airways. This was almost a stupendous joke! Air service was just beginning to spring locally in Nigeria at the time. It seemed an impossible dream for a man of not so tangible and uneducated means like Ofor. He needed not spread it to the mountains, anyway. After all, it was just an imagination, a mere dream in his heart, kept personally and shared only with his wife. Little wonder, then, that Fredrick was gratefully given the education his parents never had. But like a dream come true, this education eventually saw Fredrick hired by the airways, long after his father’s mere imagination.
Back then, in the forties, fifties and sixties, education in Nigeria made one a god in the actual sense of the word “god” more than today, and there were ready jobs awaiting all graduates, with salaries good enough to make them live like kings or queens. It was not like these days, when jobs are farfetched yet within the fingertips of any exceptional person who dares to be different from the lot, as Ofor did in his time.
Ofor’s tall standing in his time, even in its very small measure compared to those of others of higher success and education, readily generated various emotions among his peers and brothers. Back in the village, they could only hear of Ofor’s success in the city.
Without even knowing his esteemed worth in the village, Ofor merely considered himself a struggling man trying to give his son an education. And he was certain about never returning to settle in the village because of its small promises compared to the city, which he liked more.
But in the village, however, stories painted him as a big man, like a small god, since he now spoke and interacted with white men, as the stories were told in the grapevine. A small mindset indeed, compared to these days, but it was big enough to arouse various emotions of admiration, elevation, respect, and inspiration on one hand, and feelings of envy, jealousy, spite, and hatred on the other.
It is often said that it is not the coin that makes the man but the character. Sadly, Ofor was too excellent and successful compared to his brothers in terms of civilization, bravery, and noble character. His brothers could not share in his happiness and seeming success. Instead, in their various insecurities, they were merely spurred to envy and jealousy. Ultimately it culminated to silent hatred and dispassion.
When he retired from active service at the railways at the age of sixty, Ofor had to move back to the village with his wife, in 1961. Despite his many years in the city, he still holds the sentiment of “dying close to his ancestors as a true son of the soil”. And he was glad he did.
At the time of this move, Fredrick had finished the standard school. With a Justice Ikemefuna Odimgba Scholarship Award in the First Republic, Fredrick left the country to Stratford University in the United Kingdom for his university education in aviation and geographic science. This happened a year after the independence of Nigeria, and he was eighteen years old.
For fifteen years, Ofor and his wife lived in the village after retirement. Though they still engaged in subsistence farming and petty trading, they were direct beneficiaries of their son Fredrick living in the UK on his student allowances, scholarship bursaries, and part-time jobs.
It was 1974 when Fredrick returned to Nigeria and Pathas Airways employed him.
A year later, Fredrick found a wife, Susan, a local girl from a nearby village. Though Susan was not very educated, she was a spirit of her own, which was a strong point of attraction to Fredrick.
In the same way one may describe a typically strong African woman, Susan was simple but self-willed, even as a young girl. She was also very beautiful and intelligent enough to sweep Fredrick off his feet as he falls in love at first sight.
It was true love, though Susan was not as educated as Fredrick would have preferred. But he married her still, much to the satisfaction of his heart, and to the honor of his parent’s sentiment that he marry someone they knew had a trusted character.
Ofor and Nwanyimma influenced Fredrick’s search for a wife. It was an acceptable, almost indisputable practice then, for one’s parents to select or find wives for men. He was thirty-two years old and Susan was twenty.
It is worth noting that Fredrick’s original name. before joining Western education and civilization, was Okoroafor. He was born on an Afor native market day. With the long stay in the city and his interaction with Western culture, however, Ofor adopted a new faith of religion and converted to Christianity. However, being so attached to his soil, Ofor would not change his name, as suggested during conversion and baptism, and Nwanyimma did the same. But eventually he allowed a new name for Okoroafor at baptism, after a series of convictions were impressed on him. A number of names were suggested initially, but he was called Fredrick finally, which Ofor was told was a good Christian name.
But in the privacy of his heart, Ofor had allowed the name Fredrick for Okoroafor because he hoped that one day, his son would become i
nfluential like Sir Fredrick Newman, then the director general of Avis Railway Services, where he worked.
When Fredrick married Susan, It was a very joyous moment for Ofor and his wife. Ofor lived to see his dreams come true: a son who was educated and worked with the airways. A son who is now married, and who could see, feel, and touch happiness, comfort, and wealth, as well as own them. A son who could no longer travel all the way to the fortune stream only to scoop mere spoonfuls.
In fact, Ofor was happy in his old age because he saw the bloom of the legacy he left his son. What more could a parent ask for?
A year later, Mazi Ofor died at the age of seventy-five. Three months afterward in the same year, his wife, Nwanyimma, followed suit. Their deaths occurred the same year Cynthia was born. When Nwanyimma died at the age of sixty-one, Cynthia was eight months old.
Frederick’s parents died with satisfaction.
Each person knows how and from where he began, how he has been living, and how he has been making use of whatever abilities, either viciously or virtuously, that nature and habit gave him.
Dike is the eldest of the three surviving brothers, and he is the forerunner of their joint activities. The uncles are born of different women to the same father, but their differences often are dispelled by any activity that requires their joint efforts.
The late Ofor, Dike, Onuma, and Onochie are the four sons of the great Mazi Obiefuna. Obiefuna is great in the sense of his popularity in hunting. Besides hunting, Mazi Obi is also famous in palm wine tapping.
Obiefuna married Nnenna, the wife of his true heart desire, meaning that Nnenna was not primarily foisted on him by demands of parents or tradition. Nnenna who was very pretty and down to earth.
Obi had a very bad temper, and Nnenna was the only person that knew just how to calm Obiefuna in his frequent temper tantrums. With his marriage to Nnenna, his temper tantrums were no longer frequent and grew softer, subsequently fading as years wear on in their marriage. He was deeply beloved by Nnenna, and in return, Obi gave all his love to her.
One Love, Many Tears Page 2