Two Poems for a Doubly Special Day
Sixteen years ago, I was about leaving Gombe, where I had helped run an IUF education programme for its affiliate, the Agricultural and Allied Workers Union of Nigeria (AAWUN) when I got a phone call that my wife was in the labour ward to deliver our third child. By the time I got to Abuja, the bundle of joy was already in her mum's arms, kicking and crying with such energy. It was one of those moments when the heart gets congealed with emotions that can be fully grasped with fatherhood. But there was an additional feeling that swept over me. And it came from the thought that I could very well have died sixteen earlier on that same date, and never had the privilege and pleasure of fathering her and her siblings. That moment in 1992 was a political one. It was the day CAFCA took its last stand at the University of Ilorin. It was a day I almost died whilst saving a building torched by the anti-riot police's teargas from burning and almost lost my life in the process. We were e...