Remembering my father, the notorious disciplinarian, By Emeka Oparah
Yesterday, while speaking to one of my older friends back in the village, he said to me: “Emeka, I hope you won’t be a notorious disciplinarian like your father. Children of nowadays can’t handle cane O!” And that really cracked me up!
My father was indeed a notorious disciplinarian, if not worse. His notoriety was widely acknowledged beyond our community. Everywhere I went, especially in the communities he worked as a teacher, people regaled me with tales of what my father “did to them”. The irony is that they told those stories with relish, fondness and with neither malice nor bitterness. To them, he was a living legend!
Look ehn, the old man was so feared that when he arrived any compound on his Honda CD 175, young people either fled or panicked wondering what they had done to warrant the “courtesy visit”. Parents literally hired him to come and straighten up their errant children.
It was so bad that people memorized the sound of his motorcycle-and suddenly in a middle of a “monkey post” match, everyone fled into the nearby bush! It was as if my father knew every child and knew their parents as well. If he caught you misbehaving, he would give you and instant “reward” and follow it up with a visit to your parents.
It was so funny that some of his former students and my older cousins, even after they had graduated from universities and married still feared my father. They’d hide their beers as soon as they heard his voice. And he knew what they were doing and laughed at it.
Now, here’s the thing: he terrified me and my siblings as much as (if not more than) he terrified other kids. I still have very vivid memories of some spanking sessions including the times I managed to escape before he got to me or once I broke free from his usually firm grasp. He appeared to have both inexhaustible energy and inexhaustible canes!
Look, I can go on and on about the old man. But guess what? He was so scared of his mom, my grandmother, that I could literally get away with anything as long as my grandmother was around.
The main wonder in all of this was my father was (still is) highly respected and beloved in my community-despite all that he did to us. In fact the people he spanked most are probably his most ardent admirers even unto his death in 2003 and till date. He was a wonderful person, even if I said so. He first told me about B. F. Skinner’s theory of Reinforcement. To him, if you punished bad behavior, you must also reward good behavior.
Fast-forward many decades after his era, here I am struggling to be the best father and teacher I can be in my small local government, where Tito would ask me: “Dad, why are you screaming at Muna? That’s not nice.” Chisos! I can only imagine trying that nonsense with my father, Nnanyiukwu Ethelbert-LEGEND!!!
Indeed times have changed…!
-Oparah is Vice President on Corporate Communications and CSR, Airtel Africa
