We Once Had A Guard – Jude Idada

We once had a guard.

He was a tall and lanky Fulani man.

Who dressed nearly as sparingly as Mahatma Gandhi, but with a pair of dashiki bottoms, and rubber slippers.

We called him Baba.

He must have been around 70.

No one could understand why my father employed him.

He had a tremor that seemed to consistently seize him.

And fell asleep at the slightest opportunity.

So ineffectual was he that it was the gardener and washerman who opened the gates for entry and egress of persons and vehicles.

One early evening, my uncle who had come to spend several months with us, sat with my younger brother and me in the garden of our home, regaling us with wondrous stories.

The honk of my father’s car sounded at the gate.

Baba stood up and walked slowly towards the gate as my father’s car stood there waiting.

He was so slow, my uncle had to stand up from the garden chair he was sitting on, walk to the gate and open it himself.

When my father’s car drove in.

It stopped by the side of Baba, and my father conversed with him for a short while.

They both laughed.

Then the driver drove the car into the compound and parked it at its normal position, close to the generator house.

When my father stepped out of the car, my uncle after his customary greeting had been said, asked my father…

“Stephen, what are you doing with this quarter to die man guarding your house?”

My father laughed.

“Be careful Baba might outlive you.”

My uncle pointed at Baba who was slowly making his way to the guard house.

“That one. God forbid. But seriously, you need to hire a proper guard.”

My dad smiled.

The kind that spoke of his decision to enlighten and before he could speak, my uncle asked.

“Where did you even find him.”

“First off, Baba is not guarding this house. I am just giving him a reason to stay alive. He needs to feel useful. Secondly, what would you have done if every day you drove into your office, you saw an old man sitting by the gate, covered with flies, begging for money and food?”

My uncle was silent.

“Baba has a very bright mind. Try conversing with him, and you will be amazed at the life he has lived and the knowledge he has.”

“What if he dies here?”

“Well if he does, then I hope he will die being loved. But hopefully, I would have located his family before then and facilitated a reunion. If they want to take him with them, then that’s fine, if not, Baba is welcome to stay here.”

“Where is his family?”

“I have the Seriki Musilimu trying to locate them. No luck yet.”

“He doesn’t know where his family is?”

“He taught he knew and went back to find them. What he met was stories that his village had been raided by cattle rustlers, and then by drought, and then by desertification, the ones who survived, moved and then moved again.”

“You mean he didn’t go back to see his people all those years he was in Lagos?”

“From the prison where the landlord of the house he was guarding had him locked up for fifteen years?”

“He was in prison!”

There was panic in my uncle’s voice.

“Relax. He was an awaiting-trial-inmate. Charged but never convicted. The Milad granted him Christmas pardon.”

“He told you all this?”

My father nodded.

“Why would you believe him?”

“Remember I worked in the Prisons. I know that not everyone within those walls is guilty. I have seen what people with money can do to people without money.”

“But Stephen, you can’t…”

“As a lawyer, I defend people in court. As a warden, I took care of all kinds of people. The worst of the worst and all kinds of the guilty. I know a liar when I see one.”

My uncle looked at Baba, who was now sitting in front of the guard house, performing his ablution.

“You trust him?”

“More than I can trust some people who are family. The man has just been dealt a poor hand by life that’s all. But his heart is made of gold.”

My uncle sighed.

“Thank God, you didn’t give him one of the rooms to stay in the house.”

“Oh no, I offered, but he refused. Instead, he insisted that he would stay in the guard house. It was his idea that he collects the money I give him, not as charity but as salary.”

Their conversation moved from there to the living room, then dining room and ended as they watched the 9 o’clock news.

In the following weeks that followed, my uncle got to know Baba.

I watched them sitting side by side, speaking in hush tones and saw my uncle keel over with laughter.

It was beautiful.

My uncle gave Baba some money the day my uncle was leaving back for Benin.

Baba refused the money and told my uncle to give the money to the beggars he met on his way.

I remember my uncle had tears in his eyes.

And I heard him tell my father.

“Stephen, God will bless you for what you have done for Baba.”

My father simply smiled and said.

“I do not do it to be blessed. I do it to be a blessing.”

I had a father.

(C) Jude Idada

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