What does one make of the notion and idea of a nursing father? That seems to be a strange and unusual concept indeed particularly in these climes where the nurturing and bringing up of the infant is reflexively perceived as the exclusive preserve of the mother. Most African men would consider it beneath their dignity to perform what is seen as a woman’s chore. Yet, until the reader takes the trouble, albeit a pleasurable one, to go through Dr Sylvester Odion Akhaine’s new book, ‘The Case of A Nursing Father’, he will fail to get the deeper ramifications that go far beyond the seemingly innocuous title. If I had the opportunity, I would have given the book the subtitle, ‘The humanist’s manifesto’. Indeed, the renowned arts critic, Mr. Ben Tomoloju, titles his foreword to the book, ‘A Celebration of Humanism’. Comprising an assortment of newspaper articles, reportage, travelogues and tributes published in various journals between 1993 and 2015, though not necessarily in chronological sequence, this book of 140 pages and 23 chapters, published in 2016 by Partridge Publishing, South Africa, may turn out to be the most impactful so far by Dr Akhaine.
For, unlike his earlier academic offerings in his specialized discipline of political economy, the linguistic accessibility and fluidity as well as disarming charm and light hearted banter of this effort will appeal both to the high minded intellectual and to the average reader. Yet, within its pages lie loaded ideological and radical messages of social change that reminds one of the Nobel laureate’s famous description of literature as a form of hand grenade which you detonate under a stagnant way of perceiving reality. In the first essay of the book, from which the collection derives its title, Dr Akhaine gives an interesting account of his unique experience on the birth of his son, baby Omata ‘bobo’ on October 29 1998. In his words, “Before his arrival, I had always dreaded the prospect of having to join the middle class slave deals which produce child labourers and slaves in the name of housemaids who are ordered around by the lady of the house”.
Unable to countenance the idea of hiring house helps, who ought themselves to be in school, to take care of the child and the house because of the occupational demands of the couple, Akhaine decides instead to serve as nursing father for the duration of his wife’s professional schedule as a working class woman in the mornings, while he used the afternoon hours to pursue his own official engagements as an activist. Of course, he admits that this was largely made possible because of his own liberal work schedule. Akhaine raises some pertinent questions here. Is there a link, for instance, between the many cases of house helps who treat wards in their care with abysmal cruelty and their innate dissatisfaction with their situation of forced labour, which is largely a function of social inequalities? But the interesting thing here is that the author comes to cherish the deep satisfaction of being a nursing father saying “Come to think about my present routine, there is abundant joy in caring for children”.
Another delectable essay in this collection, ‘Season of Ceremonies’, focuses not just on the author’s participation in the ceremonies marking the transition of the Queen Mother, Elizabeth, in 2002 but also the celebration of his own 38th birthday at his Highfield en suite apartment on Friday, April 12, 2002. Giving an account of the experience, Dr Akhaine writes, “It was a medley of international students: Italians, Germans, Australians, Greece, Indians, Somalis, Ugandans, Zambians, Botswanans, Caribbeans, Kazakhstanis and British. It was a single humanity. There was no racial barrier as we chatted, danced and wined all the way”. Continuing he submits that “Politicians and Capitalists appeared to me the enemy of humanity. Politicians create artificial racial or ethnic bars to appropriate political power, and capitalists do the same for profit maximization. If power and capitalist motives are allowed to dominate the world affairs as they appear to, a world without walls, hunger and diseases is doomed”.
And in the piece, ‘My Easter Trip to the Netherlands’, Akhaine writes on how he seized the opportunity to play the role of Chairman at the One Year birthday of Bill Clinton Evbota on March 30, 2002, at Café Hofke Toon and Martha in the neighbourhood of Brunssum, in the Netherlands to speak on the place of struggle in human affairs. In his words, “My message to them was that they had to recognize the fact that the world is a theatre of struggle. Every stage one finds oneself at, one should know that is a struggle; it is one of the principles of social Darwinism. This has been sunk into my head by radical literature…the world is a turf of struggle, let us struggle to put our country right…”.
In a piece titled ‘Christmas without Ponmo’, Dr Akhaine reflects on the existential realities of December 25, 2015 in Nigeria, at least from the point of view of the impoverished masses. He wondered how many Nigerians could really and truly enjoy the laughter and merriment of the season given the hardships into which ruling class misrule had plunged the country. As he put it, “Given the palpable suffering of most of the population in long-lasting struggle to eke out a living and its compounding by a bunch of reckless state actors, the hilarity of Christmas is at least gone for today. In pains, the suffering masses would continue their existential drudgery in search of what to eat”. Yet, the author does not give in to despair as he concludes on a hopeful note, ”As toiling Nigerians cannot merry today, eat their ponmo, let it be known that their days of ‘suffering and smiling’ will be over (apologies to Fela Anikulapo- Kuti). They shall claim their day, they shall laugh their laugh, and they shall merry again with shouts of victory over their oppressors”. But is there any viable, genuinely radical and progressive organizational platform on ground which can facilitate the mobilization of Nigerians for the kind of positive and fundamental change that Dr Akhiane envisages? Are we not witnessing instead the mobilization of poor and dispossessed Nigerians around ethno-regional and religious looters of the common treasury thus ironically deifying those responsible for their plight?
Whether he is writing of his experiences in Fidel Castro’s Cuba, paying tribute to the revolutionary saint, Che guevera, the late Baba Omojola, Chief Anthony Enahoro, or even relatively lesser known patriots like the couple, Abiodun Kolawole and Cecilia Temitayo Kolawole, or the late broadcaster of Lagos Television, Ms Adetoun Adeloye, Akhaine does not come across as a theoretical or armchair humanist. For him, humanity is not to be seen in purely abstract terms as the faceless masses. Rather, humanity to the author is made up of flesh and blood human beings whose pains, pangs, sorrows and joys he shares. This is perhaps why, even as his existential Odyssey still unfolds, Dr Akhaine can readily and rightly aver that so far the struggle has been his life.