Paul Ozako: When 97 Years is Not Enough

Maero Ozako

Sometimes, Sometimes, 97 years is too little. My father, the Rev. Canon Paul Eviano Ozako passed away on the 18th of February, 2024. Of course, I knew my father will die one day but certainly not at the unripe age of 97. I knew that he still had more books to read, more roads to travel, more jokes to crack and definitely more ice-cubes to chew! Yes, my father just loved to chew ice cubes.

Atypical that he was a grand old man who still did things that people his age were no longer doing. Papa drove his car till he was about 92 years old or so and I mean not within the city of Ozoro, his hometown where he now lived. He would drive across towns adorned in his recently discovered fashion trend, his black, felt bowler hat and white cassock. Then we, the children had a smart idea. Since he would not stop driving; we decided to get ‘creative’, just as he had groomed us to be. There was a shared morbid fear among us, that if he one day scratched a car while driving, we, his children, would be dragged for allowing a man over 90 to get behind a wheel. So, one of us had the smart idea to ‘undo’ his clutch and some other things so, he never could really get the car fixed again. It was safer for us all!

Papa was indeed a man of vibrant colour and strange hues. The brightest colour was that he was disiplinarian. He would definitely earn medals for instilling discipline – gold! I recall writing my list for school and he would screen it like an FBI detective. I remember writing, ‘sardines’, crossed out! ‘Sweets’??? That riled my father to high heavens, sweets. My father struggled hard to understand why we would dare to write sweets. He always emphasized that only a thief would love sweets and biscuits. This did not stop any of us, we were happy ‘thieves’. All Papa’s children love sweets till this day.

Papa was so strict! He was so firm. I recall how all our mates called their fathers, ‘Daddy’ and my father insisted on ‘Papa’. We felt that moniker was not cool at all but we had to live with it. We muttered along.

My father also never gave any of us English names! Not at all! That was so annoying to us then; Maero, Efere, Makaino, Oghale, Makugbe, Aruoriwo or ‘Ichako’ as Papa fondly called her. I remember that I felt so frustrated by this name thing that when my late cousin Ephraim Malaka gave us all ’guy’ names, we were all so elated! Here was my chance to have an ‘English’ name, I thought. Ephraim anointed my late brother, Efere, ’Billy Spanner’ Makaino, my sister was ‘Mama Kitchen’, and I, Maero, took the cake because I was so happy with my new, ‘English’ name! I was anointed as ‘Babytitihoya.’ So, on all my note books, I wrote, my names as ‘Babytithoya M. Ozako’. M for Maero! That book must have fallen in Papa’s path and of course I got the flogging of my life! That was my father; a floggist. I, daresay, that my father must have flogged with the cane till old age. I am very sure he did this till at least to 90 years old. Worried parents called on my father, and stubborn children were ‘cracked’ by him.

My father loved to read and made us love reading. My father read almost to his last day- he probably missed a day when the end was near. A few years ago, maybe at 85 years old, he took his car to the fuel station and while reading his newspaper, fell into the man-hole and broke his thigh and collar bone. He got out of it and would still read his newspapers every day except when the vendor forgot to bring them. I recall, Efere, Makaino and I being left at home in the peaceful days of Nigeria, in Benin – alone. We would read like books were going out of fashion! To encourage us, Papa created a library for us and made a stamp then, ‘P.E.Ozako. CHILDREN’S LIBRARY’. Television was never ever our thing, till this day. After reading, we would write book reports for the books we had read. My parents would score the best of us, and we would get gifts – books! I often think back fondly on Efere’s animated discussions with Papa about Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek’s writing then.

I do not remember ‘hugging’ my father – I never told him I loved him. He told me he did in a strict line, ‘All that we do is because we love you!’. Hian – how ‘loving’ indeed! Haha.

My father was born in 1926 on the 31st of December. In his handwritten autobiography, he writes that he hailed from two ‘distinguished public-serving families’ in Ozoro kingdom. Key words, please. He was paternally of the Efere family of Etevie community which was founded by Efere Unurahome. As his name was, was he, ‘rich in every sphere of life’. Efere means riches. My late brother, Efere was named after him and he lived up to his name, rich in every way.

My father carried old age like it was a nice, beautiful robe; no frills, no patterns or tassles. That was my father, blunt as an old knife- never seeking much but excellence. It almost felt like he would never die. I know that till the end, he really still thought he would live just a little bit longer. He spoke about how he really wanted to be at the centenary of his secondary school, the Dennis Memorial School, Onitsha. Yes, that almost seemed like a ‘cult’- his alumni! His closest friends attended this school; Justice Oki, Ben Akwukwuma, Mr Ejiogu. He loved his school. Even when when I visited him 2 weeks to his passing, it was still stories about his love for school and the celebrations last year. I still recall the stories he told us about how his school was started, and about his famous school mates, some older like James Ezeilo, Kenneth Dike, Ifeajuna. I still see him on that day, eyes fully-lit when I presented to him, a Dennis Memorial Grammar School tie and pocket square that an alumni of the school, Onyemechi Kadamawa Okonkwo had gifted him. This must have been one of his brightest moments. My niece, Phoebe Atadious especially listened to his stories in awe!

In his writings, Papa talked about how his father had to go out late one evening in December, 1944 to borrow 7 shillings he needed as fare to Onitsha for his common entrance examination into DMGS. He passed and got admitted but had no hope of ever attending till A.W. Bovi who had also attended the school pushed for him to apply for a scholarship, which he got! Papa attended DMGS from 1945 to 1949. After this he went to the Awka Teacher’s College and told the interviewers that he wanted to become a priest. He was sent to a European priest at Nsukka who really did nothing about this so, he went back to his hometown of Ozoro. He was then employed as a teacher in ICS, Oleh and he taught Standard Six till December, 1950.

My father’s mother had died in 1945, then his father in December 1950. At this point, Papa left home for Ibadan to look for work. He was employed that December with 13 young school leavers and was sent to the survey school in Kaduna for 9 months. There, ‘charmed by a new language’, as he writes, he learnt the Hausa language through a young boy, Momma, a tailoring apprentice who worked under an Ibo Tailor. He also bought books, one of them, ‘Mu Koyo Hausa’, ‘Let Us Learn Hausa’. After the survey training, he returned to Ibadan but being ‘not technically-minded’, he did not return to survey.

My father was a polyglot; he spoke Yoruba, Ibo and Hausa so fluently that he was one of the translators of the Bible to these languages at the Bible Translation School in Jos.

He then applied as a 3rd class clerk and got posted to Ile-Ife in the District Officers’ office, in December,1951. He worked there in the colonial office till 1954. Then, in 1957, he got admitted to the University College Ibadan where he studied classics (Greek and Latin), and graduated with a B.A. Honours in Latin with a Government scholarship. He also did a post graduate diploma in Education. In 1961, he was posted to St Michael’s Teacher Training College, Oleh.

Papa was principal of Essi College, taught Latin at James Welch College Emevor, Okpara Grammar school.  He rose to become the secretary of Education of Bendel State, and was the head of the Dellta Publishing Service at some point. He wrote at least one storybook for children which was in Isoko language and a few other books. One of the books I recall that he wrote is ‘Tithing, It Works!’ He was the first head of the Education department of the Delta Steel Company, Aladja.

My father was not a perfect man but, was perfect in so many ways especially ingraining in us the love for books and the thirst for excellence, academically and otherwise. He was storyteller; embellishing tales with songs that I still hear as we sat around him.

I will never forget my father, his love for travel and his hunger for adventure. Till this day when anyone says ‘he tried, he lived long’ a little voice in me almost whispers that he had many more years to live. It hurts in a certain kind of way.

 Even as we miss him, we are grateful that his restless soul was the one that God chose to birth us all. Rest in peace, Papa.