My mother was a motherfucker, you know. She would flog you like a man. You know how? She’d say: “Touch your toes. Bend down.” And it was batabatabatabatabatabatabatabata …! She and my father wanted their son to be an example. So any time there was punishment, I would get the most. Man, my mother and father were so honest with their discipline, their child had to be flogged. They were the baddest parents I ever met in my life. It was systematic flogging. There was no week I didn’t take sometimes three, sometimes six floggings. Any time my mother flogged me, it was rough flogging-o: chagachagachagachagachagacha …! If I tried getting away, she would say in a severe, commanding voice: “Come back here.” And I’d have to come back.
I remember very well the first rough flogging she gave me. I nearly died from it, man! My mother’s mother, Adejonwo, was at the house that day, sitting down in the big room. I think she asked me to do something for her that had to do with food. But you know how children are, don’t want to listen to old women, man. So since I thought she was bothering me, I told her, “Mama, leave me alone!” My mother overheard.
“What? Whaaaat did you saaaaay?”
Heeeeeeeyyyyyyyyy! Ohhhhhhhhh, she flogged me rough-o! Man, I’ll never forget that day. I was flogged to the bone! Ohhhhhhhhhhhh!
Strange! But something just kept attracting me to her. I didn’t know why she was kicking my ass. I don’t think anybody kicked my ass as much as my mother. But I dug her. I liked to hear her talk, discuss. Something always made me sit with her, to listen. I vaguely remember when she started getting into politics. No, not vaguely. I remember very well, because when she was running around doing politics she didn’t have time to flog me. The more she got into politics the less time she had to beat me. So I, too, began liking politics.
It wasn’t until around 1946 or ’47 that I began understanding what my mother was fighting for. She was organizing a big protest demonstration with the women of Abeokuta. She was protesting on the streets with the women. And they went straight to see the District Officer of Abeokuta. He was a young white boy; one of those fresh British guys who tried getting arrogant with my mother. She had gone to see him to expose the demonstrators’ grievances. The District Officer must have said something in a disdainful voice, like: “Go on back home.” To which my mother exploded: “You bastard, rude little rat …!” Something like that. Ohhhhhhhhh! What a scandal! It was something heavy at that time. And the news went around like fire, man. The Daily News, the national newspaper then, printed the story immediately. Imagine insulting the highest motherfucking representative of the British imperial crown in Abeokuta. Ohhhhhhhh, man! I was proud. People in Abeokuta talked about nothing else but that incident and “Bere”. “Bere” was my mother’s nickname. And I would just beam with pride.
The Nigerian Women’s Union was a powerful organization. My mother founded it in the early ’40s. As I got older, she started taking me around with her in the car to her campaign meetings. You know, she was the first woman to drive a car in Nigeria, man. Eventually I got to know what she was doing because she’d take me everywhere with her. I admired her. That was when I began getting close to her a little bit. I was close but not as close as I should have been.
My mother was quite heavy politically. And, ohhhhhhh, I liked the way she took on those old politicians, all those dishonest rogues. She wouldn’t have anything to do with them. None of them. Except Nnamdi Azikiwe (“Zik”), for whom she had a little sympathy. But she was against all the others, all those politicians like the Obafemi Awolowo (“Awo”) type. She even finished with Zik later on because he began playing a double game with her. It happened when she went to London with Zik for a press conference. When she returned, she said that Zik was sabotaging her. She said that Zik didn’t want progress for her at all. Awolowo? To her, he was the biggest crook. She could tolerate Zik, but not Awolowo. At the time – in 1949 – I was one of those encouraging her to join NCNC, the National Council of Nigeria-Cameroons, Zik’s party. Everybody loved Zik, because he was a nationalist. I wanted my mother to be in his party. I wanted her to win the elections. She was so popular, man! Oh, those politicians of that time destroyed the country, man. And look at what they’re doing today! They’re the same politicians: Awolowo, Azikiwe. . . .
But in 1949 Zik’s party was a national party. The Yorubas voted for him. He won many times. He won over Awolowo. Even in Yorubaland he beat Awolowo. Awolowo’s party, Action Group, wasn’t a national party at all. I was hearing a lot about all that then. I’d always sit down with my mother when she was talking politics. I was interested in her progress. I didn’t know why she was kicking my ass, but I dug my mother so much.
The more my mother got involved in the political movement, the worse things got between her and my father. The confrontation of my mother with the Oba (chief) of Abeokuta didn’t help either to improve things between my parents. You see, the Oba Alake Sir Ladapo Ademola II was the Chief of Abeokuta. But my mother never called him a king, as he had titled himself. She called him a chief. Her reasons are historically right because Abeokuta never had a king. Odùduwà, the ancestor of all Yorubas, founded the sacred city of Ilè-Ifè. Odùduwà had only seven children and they were the only kings of Yorubaland. They founded seven kingdoms: Ondo, Oyo, Ife, Benin and three others I don’t remember offhand. The Alake was not one of those seven kings. So my mother would never call him king. When she spoke to the press or to white people she would always say, “The Chief of Abeokuta, the Alake.” You see, Alake is a title.
My mother was against the Alake because he was working for the white District Officer. He was a lackey of the colonial system. When the Alake declared he would collect taxes from the market women of Abeokuta, my mother decided to take their side. So she went to see the Alake on their behalf. She said to him: “How can you collect taxes from women who are selling small, small things in the market?” The Alake would collect taxes from them for his own pockets. That was in ’46, ’47, ’48. My mother said: “This must stop!” She mobilized all the women. Then they took to the streets and protested. That’s how the whole thing started. She also got all the market women to boycott sales for as long as the British colonial administration did not recognize their rights as traders. From there, it progressed to demanding more rights. It expanded to become a Nigerian opposition. At first, it was called the Nigerian Women’s Union, then it became the Federation of Nigerian Women’s Union.
The Oba Alake Sir Ladapo Ademola II, Chief of Abeokuta
Ohhh, those were fantastic times-o! My mother succeeded in dethroning this pseudo-king, the Alake. How did she do it? It was ingenious. She got all the women together and told them: “Now, we are going to take over the Alake’s house.” Everybody hated the Alake. There was a huge courtyard outside his house. So my mother said, “Let’s all go and take over the entire house.” About 50,000 women went, with my mother at the head. They went and slept there in the yard of his house. The Alake was surrounded by 50,000 women. They were everywhere, in the front, behind the house, everywhere. The Alake couldn’t get out of his own house. You know what that means? What would you do? You would flee too. And, man, that’s exactly what the Alake did. He fled to Oshogbo. My mother had succeeded in chasing the Alake out of Abeokuta; she chased him into exile. And the Alake stayed in Oshogbo for three years. It wasn’t until around 1950, ’51, I think, that he came back to Abeokuta. And guess who brought him back? It was Chief Obafemi Awolowo who brought the Alake back in 1951 when he launched his political party, Action Group, and was attempting to get the British to put him at the head of the first Nigerian government.
Bringing the Alake back was such a demagogic move! When my mother heard the news, I remember seeing her come storming into the house. And a few minutes later, come back out, dressed as a … man. She had on shorts, like Bermudas, a man’s shirt, a beret and sandals. I swear she got dressed like that because she realized she was going to fight men. It was her way of saying, “It takes a man to fight another man!” But the Alake came back anyway. . . .
My mother, she was something else! Tireless, man! After the Alake, she shifted her fight- to getting the right of suffrage for Nigerian women. And she won that one too, because women did cast votes in the first elections in Nigeria during colonial times. An amazing woman, my mother! In the early 1950s she became the only Nigerian woman – and perhaps the first African woman ever – to travel to the USSR, China, Poland, Yugoslavia and East Berlin. In China, she met with Mao Tse-tung. I don’t know who she met in Russia. You see, at that time she was one of the vice-presidents of the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF). Remember that was at a time when it was considered a crime to travel to the so-called “iron-curtain” countries. So, in 1955, upon returning from her trip to China, her passport was seized. Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was then Prime Minister. Nigeria was still a colony but under a régime of “internal self-government”. Then, some time in the early ’60s, she was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize. I don’t remember well, but I think they gave it to her in Lagos.
But there is something I do remember very clearly. That’s when my mother took me to meet Kwame Nkrumah. Ghana was already independent and Nkrumah was President. Nigeria wasn’t independent yet – and still isn’t. That was around early 1957.* She had met with Nkrumah many times in her life. But on that particular day she took me with her to see Nkrumah. You know, if my mother wants to see somebody like that and she takes me, it means she’s going to see a friend. Nkrumah was her friend. At that time he would come now and then to Lagos in his yacht on holidays. I remember his yacht being anchored somewhere in Lagos harbour. He was wearing a white shirt and trousers, man. Nkrumah told my mother he didn’t want to see anybody; that he hadn’t come for any official visit; that he didn’t want to see any minister, nobody at all. Not even Tafawa Balewa, the Prime Minister. He had come to meditate. But he had sent a message to my mother, saying that he wanted to see her. When she got there they started joking. My mother said teasingly:
“Ah, you come to Nigeria and you don’t want to see your brothers here.”
“I don’t deal with corrupt people,” he answered.
My mother looked at him and smiled.
Nkrumah went on: “They are slaves to the people in England. You know that.”
He was smiling while saying it. Man, he was so cool. My mother thought a lot of him. But she never spoke much about him to me. He was her friend, a very good friend. Nkrumah! Man, I’ll never forget his face.