Being a Centenarian – attaining age 100 – is a special privilege, not gifted to many. Also, it is not gifted to many children to live long enough to witness this centenary milestone of their parents. So, when you have a septuagenarian son being alive to celebrate a centenarian mother, it calls for hailing – Ogo Eledumare, Halleluyah and Alhamdidulai.
The Almighty breathed life into my mother on February 7th, 1924 in Ijebu-Isiwo, Ijebu-Ode local government area of Ogun state , the daughter of a Catholic father, Anthony Dairo, and an Anglican mother, Beatrice Adejoke, who belonged to the Mogoosu Royalty in Ibido-Ogbo, near Ijebu-Ode, the royalty that crowns the Awujale of Ijebuland.
Young Oladunni lived with her maternal uncle, a teacher, but came home annually to celebrate Christmas/New Year. It was on one such homecoming that mother met cupid, or put differently, mother was offered to cupid. My maternal grandfather had two sons first, then four daughters, my mother being second. Parents, we all know, want the best for their children, especially their daughters, when it comes to marriage which was why arranged marriages were the norm then, after evaluating a prospective suitor and his family pedigree. I was told that Dad was a close friend of my grandfather’s first son. Now, in his youth, I learnt my father was a toast – a handsome, affable, ebullient, likeable person with good comportment: a quintessential Omoluabi. He already had a wife. As told by my mother, on one Christmas/New Year homecoming, her father, a Christian, offered all his four daughters for my father, a Muslim, to make a pick of a wife!!! My father settled for my mother, and as they say, the rest is history. Obviously, grandpa must have been very pleased in my father, both in character and his family background. On that note started a union that produced four of us from my mother – an elder sister and two younger sisters. Two of us – me and my immediate younger sister are Christians with the first and last born being Muslims. We celebrate ‘Ileya’ and Christmas in harmony. It is a tragedy that some people have weaponised religion to create conflict. My father added three more wives. He passed on in 1988.
Celebrating my mother at age 100 is a celebration of Grace in her life. She beats the odds. Among the 42 members of her Age Grade and the five wives of her husband, she is the last person standing. She has been abundantly blessed, for Mom has enjoyed robust, good health all her life, bringing great financial relief to the children, as against the financially draining burden and stressful care some other children have had to endure with their aged parents. She does not have high blood pressure, walks around unaided, retains sharp eyes, strong voice and no diabetes or sugar problem, in spite of using six cubes of St. Louis sugar in a cup of Milo drink!! Mom is also lucky to be in the care of family members – a daughter and a great, great grandson, as against artificial care of hired staff.
Mother was a devoted wife who converted to Islam, the religion of her husband, and worshipped faithfully according to its tenets that she was installed as “Atoyegbe” of Idera Mosque, Imowe quarters, Ijebu-Isiwo.
In her prime, mother was a workaholic and had engaged in multiple ventures – from food selling, including the famous Ijebu delicacy, Ikokore, in Ibadan, palm oil at Mamu, near Ijebu-Igbo, to being a fish merchant in Akotogbo, in the riverine area of Ondo state from where the family returned to the roots in Ijebu-Isiwo.
My mother is the most organized person I have known. She is a human alarm clock and a most time conscious person. Tell Mom you need to wake up four o’clock in the morning, she will wake you at precisely four o’clock. Most times I go home to take her on visits to her daughters and grandchildren. If I tell Mom we shall leave by 7am, she would be fully ready by 6.30am. If constraints of time is making it difficult for me to go home and take her on a visit, Mom would just go on the visit, without notification but with a pot of soup, fufu, garri, and of course, her beverage – Milo ! Asked why she goes to such bothers when visiting a daughter or an adult grandchild, Mom would tell you that when visiting someone unannounced, you must have at least two-day food supply so as not to put undue pressure on your host. She would not want to create an emergency situation where the host/hostess would have to just rustle a food for her. The point is that Mom is finicky with what she eats – live fish, not oku eko, and fresh pepper/tomato as soup ingredients, which she must see before grinding ! At home, you remove your shoes before entering the sitting room and ladies must keep their handbags in their hands, or on their laps, not dump on a seat. She does not tolerate littering of space.
My mother is blessed with the sharpest memory imaginable. Imagine recalling, in details, those present, and who said what at a meeting 60 years ago when my father bought land from a family in the town ! Mom is a dependable monitor. When I was building my house in the village 33 years ago, Mom would resume with the workers at site in the morning, pack her lunch along, and close with them in the evening. She counts the number cement bags and blocks used and the lorry loads of sharp and soft sand delivered!! Since completion of the house decades ago, Mom has been the one getting those who live in a two-room section of the building – free of charge – but with the proviso of keeping the compound clean. However, once my mother determines that the premises is not being well maintained enough, the person is out.
Finally, I remain eternally grateful to my mother for saving my son from being a cripple for life. It was in the early 1980s. My son, the last born, took ill and could not walk again. He was just one year plus. I was with the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos and took the child to the official hospital on Bode Thomas Street, Surulere. He was admitted and my Mom came to stay with him in the hospital. After about a week, my Mom started expressing doubt about the efficacy of the treatment being given in restoring mobility to the child and pleaded with me to allow her take the child home to my father for native care. The Indian lady doctor who was attending to him objected to the request to discharge him. Eventually, I had to sign that I forced a discharge of the child, against medical advice. I took my Mom home, with my son, on a Saturday. When I was returning to Lagos that day, my father had assured me that when I come back a week later, the child will be walking, again. It was one week of harrowing anxiety.
The following Saturday, as I was parking in front of my father’s house, behold, my son was running out of the house shouting: Daddy! Daddy!! I literally jumped out of the car, leaving the engine running, lifted him up, restraining tears of joy. I went inside the house and prostrated, full length, before my father and mother. The efficacy of African traditional medicine has just been demonstrated, so convincingly!!!
Two weeks after returning to Lagos, I took the boy back to the Surulere hospital. When the Indian doctor saw him walking in, she stood transfixed, as if seeing an apparition. Then, she blurted out: how did it happen? Imagine, she had concluded that the child will not walk again, yet, supposedly giving treatment! Fear Western-trained doctors o.
On New Year Day, January 1, 2024, my mother was in my country home – she lives in her husband’s house – to share in the festivities of the season when call came through that the little boy of 1984 just had his third child in London earlier in the day. My mother went into celebrative dance steps on being told the news. I celebrate my mother on attaining this landmark age of 100 and wish her many more happy days. She is a Mother for All Season.
•Dr. Olawunmi, a Mass Communication Scholar and Public Affairs Analyst, is former Washington Correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) and Fellow, Nigerian Guild of Editors. Email: olawunmibisi@yahoo.com Phone ( SMS ONLY ) 0803 364 7571 Tuesday, 23 January, 2024
