In 1995, a few months after my brother was born, our home was attacked by a band of armed robbers. I was just about to leave for school, and my dad was in front of me, only for both of us to step in front of a gun as we opened the door.
He pushed me back inside as the robbers descended on him, beating him and asking for our landlord, a Customs officer. I was still inside when I heard the gun go off. Abandoning all reasoning, my sister and I ran outside, crying our eyes out. We didn’t find him.
Almost an hour later, our dad and another tenant, Dr. Oke, walked through the gate. The robbers had gotten distracted, and they both found a way to escape. The gunshot hadn’t been meant for them but for the landlord and it wasn’t a kill shot. Nobody died.
That experience kicked my overactive imagination into overdrive. What if my father had died? The thought festered, worsened by the endless stream of Nollywood “grace to grass” stories, where a family collapses once the breadwinner dies.
I decided, quite grimly for a nine-year-old, that if I ever lost a parent, I didn’t want it to be my dad. I just wanted to be taken care of. [Optional rephrasing: “I didn’t want to become one of those sad stories.”] Another tenant had lost his wife some years earlier, but he and his kids seemed okay, grief notwithstanding.
When my brother turned six months old, my mom went back to school in Nsukka for her final semester. She’d done the first while still pregnant with him.
That had always been the way since I was four. Every now and then, she’d take a study leave to pursue her degree, so much of my childhood was spent with just our dad holding down the fort. We missed her, but we were fine.
My dad wasn’t just a parent, he was our source of financial security.
Between 1998 and 2000, that security cracked. His business struggled, and my mom, a civil servant, had to pick up the slack, admirably so. We moved from our rented apartment in New Oko-Oba to our then-unfinished house in Iju just to stay afloat.
My previously sheltered life was replaced with a new reality. From cable TV and video games, we went to living in a house with no power supply and fetching water kilometres away. Sometimes, Dad had to borrow transport fare for me to go to school. We all struggled, I even had to repeat a class.
But things turned around toward the end of 2000. Dad bounced back. He wasn’t home much because work kept him away but if I needed anything, all I had to do was ask. And most times, I got it.
What I haven’t mentioned yet is our strained relationship. My dad had a temper and could be brutally critical. I, on my part, felt I kept falling short of his expectations as the first son.
So I pulled away.
Spending my remaining secondary school and university years outside Lagos helped. If we rarely saw each other, I couldn’t upset him.
Still, he showed up when it mattered. He’d take us on trips, crack jokes (especially after a drink or two), and make sure we felt cared for in his own way.
During my third year at Olabisi Onabanjo University, we had a course on advertising law and ethics. One assignment required sourcing local government bylaws. My dad drove me all over Ijebu-Ode to get materials. He was available. I wasn’t talking.
We barely understood each other, or rather, he didn’t know who I’d become. Instead of asking me directly, he’d ask my mom. My default response was always: “Everything’s fine.”
Was I still dating the girl who used to call his phone when my Motorola broke? Was the girl next door just a friend? Was I happy at work? Were my grades okay? Did I need money?
“Everything’s fine.”
We didn’t talk. I didn’t talk. Except when I needed something and he came through. Otherwise, I was the quiet one, low-maintenance, rarely in trouble, rarely discussed.
Everything was fine.
But eventually, I stopped needing him — at least not the version of him I clung to after that robbery in 1995. And he, now winding down his career as a vet, was dealing with his own transitions.
Can a man still be called a father when he’s no longer the provider when his family doesn’t need him like before?
That shift hit hard. He got moody. We argued, sometimes loudly, sometimes with silence. He felt disrespected. We said it had nothing to do with money. But it kind of did.
It didn’t help that Mom was still working and he was mostly home. She became the go-to again. That bruised his ego. He felt sidelined. He even talked about dying.
But he got through it.
And only then did I begin to understand what he’d gone through. My dad only ever had two things: work and family. He wasn’t a man of many friends. We were his circle.
Back under the same roof, we finally had to deal with years of avoidant silence.
Turns out, money wasn’t the point. If you asked me now which parent I wouldn’t want to lose, I’d say both. I consider myself incredibly lucky to still have them.
We’re the ones sending money home now. But I wouldn’t trade my dad’s daily WhatsApp prayer forwards for anything.
He was always there, even when I was too wounded to notice. I was the one who reduced him to just “the provider” because it hurt less than getting close and being criticised.
But this is a man who brings breakfast to his grown kids’ rooms, does the dishes out of boredom, and blurts out the most ridiculous jokes.
He was always there.
Eventually, I had to reconcile my “money daddy” and my “supportive daddy” into the same person, even though I didn’t need the money anymore.
It’s taken me a long time to love my dad: from fear to avoidance, to tolerance, to forgiveness, to respect, to acceptance, and finally to love. I wish it hadn’t taken so long. But we were both on separate journeys.
I used to think that being older meant having all the answers. But watching my dad age made me realise: every phase asks new questions. Nobody ever really figures it out.
We still don’t talk much. But like everything else, we’re fixing that.
