Debo Oduntola (Not Real name) is a young man who after sending me series of mails finally decided we should meet one-on-one to really explain to me the genesis of his actions towards his father.

So far he doesn't have any iota of regret for not helping his father out of poverty even though he earns over N850,000 as an employee of an Oil and Gas servicing company in Lekki. Debo also have 3 other younger ones, Wunmi, Deji and Mojisola. While Wunmi is an Architect with one of the top indigenous Architecture firms in the state and married with 3 kids to a banker, Deji is a Systems Engineer with a Telecommunications contracting company in Abuja. He is also married to a medical doctor and they are bless with a baby boy. Mojisola is currently doing her masters in a Federal university but is into Events planning and is engaged to her long time boyfriend who they intend getting married in the 2nd quarter of next year.

Debo being the first child is married to Bimpe, a medical practitioner and they both have 2 beautiful girls. As the first child, Debo had to act basically like the father and guardian to his sibling right from their childhood days even though he only seniors his immediate sister with 3 years.

As he tried explaining his story to me, tears flowed down his eyes and knowing that he might only burst out crying if I tried consoling him at that particular time, I decided to excuse him after I had handed him a face wipe.

15minutes later I returned to my office to have a chat with Debo as I know he would have composed himself and now ready to talk. Debo demanded I give him a glass of water.

After Sipping the glass of water, Debo clears his throat and summoned courage to begin to explain all he had tried telling me over the phone this past few weeks to justify his actions and that of his siblings towards their suffering and aged father.

"My father was a young employee in one of the first foreign Petroleum extraction companies that started operation in Nigeria in the 1950s. He work in the Accounting department of the Oil company for about 7years. As a young employee in the foreign Oil company, my father earned more than 20times what his peers who were either working as junior clerks in Federal government parastatals or private firms earned. While he was earning much even as a junior staff, he was also opportuned to be sent on so many local and foreign trainings alongside with his bosses to help keep the company up-to-date on accounting softwares and modes.

"My father throughout his 7years stay in the Oil company never bought a single property even when what he earned in 3 months could buy a plot of land in the Old Ikoyi or Apapa area of Lagos in the 1970s. All he did was go to beer parlor every single night after the close of work with his friends, drinking with friends isn't a bad idea but the most painful part was that my father was the sole sponsor of every single bottle himself and his friends took. No matter how many bottles they consumed each night, my father always volunteered to settle the bills. He did this in other to keep getting cheers and praises from his friends and as well as retain the presidency of their tiny club formed by the clique of friends.

He did this act year in year out leaving the basic responsibilities of the warfare of myself and my sibling to my mother. A woman who as at then was only managing a small Provision store she took over after the death of her mother.

My mother was the sole bread winner of the house even though her husband was earning up to 100 times her profit annually.

My mother worked extremely hard to provide the very best for me and my siblings and to the amazement of family and friends, no one could just fathom why my father who earns extremely well could just abandon my mother to be the one to take up the entire responsibilities of the home.

Initially as a yound child of about 7years, I used to think every adult must fast all the days of their lives and this always scared me from growing from a boy to a man because I feared I was going to fast every single day as I became older. This fear came as a result seeing my mother observing endless of fasting and prayers. I won't be lying if I said I could count how many times I ever witnessed my mother eat during the day. She was always fasting and praying for God to touch the heart of my father to make him realize he needed to pickup his responsibilities as the man of the house.

My mothers tears fell on the fact that assuming my father had no job and was job haunting or had a job with a meager pay that would have been a different situation, but for a man who works with a multi-international Oil firm and was earning a huge salary even as a junior staff, it was surprising to the entire family why he could decide to ignore his responsibilities as a man.






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Is that all ??
The guy is just funny.

The father was not responsible in the past and so what?
I think he should forget the past and forgive his father.
God has helped him and the younger ones through the hard past and so now they should show theiR father mercy and take care of him.
Besides, he is also showing a greater level of irresponsibility by deciding not to take care of his father.
If truly the father was wrong he would have known it by now and that guilty conscience is enough punishment for already.

He is his father irrespective of what might have happened in the past.
He will regRet if the fatheR dies under this condition knowing fully that he could have done things differently.

when you forgive a person irrespective ot whom the person is or what he/she has done, you find out that u have released someone from unhappiness.


but if u look deeply you fiind outt that the person u released is YOU!

forgive ur fada for u

One Evening while Debo was in his 3rd year at the University, he received a call from Wunmi to quickly rush home that there is an emergency. On packing a few things and heading home he found only his youngest sister Mojisola who made him understand that other siblings and their mother are all in the hospital. He learned the day before, their father who had lost his job came home that night from his drinking spree and after just having a little misunderstanding with his wife, began to beat her and eventually used a wooden table to hit her on the chest which made her to slump and faint instantly.

When Debo rush to the Hospital, he found his mum in the emergency ward waiting to be operated on. The doctor informed him that after several test and x-ray run on his mum, they discovered she had an internal bleeding and needed to carry out an urgent operation on her to stop the bleeding.

At 5:30pm that same day, his mother was rushed into the theatre for the operation. Debo and his siblings were dead scared as they saw their mother had lost weight drastically with 24hours the incident happened. She could barely open her eyes and wasn't able to utter a single word. To their greatest amazement, their father all this while was no where to be found. Debo learned from his siblings that after their father had dropped their mother at the hospital and only dropped a meager sum as deposit at the hospital he never turned up again. It was their mum's siblings who all came around and paid more money to the doctor as well as the money for the test, x-rays, drugs and the operation. His 3 siblings, maternal uncles and aunties as well as 2 of his father's siblings were all present at the hospital all through the his mother was in the theatre without any trace of their father in sight.

At around 9pm the doctor came out to meet the family, and after multiple enquiries on the condition of their mother's health, the doctors words were " I am sorry my people, in as much as we did everything we could, we still lost her". Those very words shattered Debo's world. His greatest fear in life of ever losing his mother has already come to past at a very early stage of his life.

It's easy for someone who hasn't experienced a thing like this to say just forgive. Stuffs like this are really hard to forget.

Acid no point continuing the story, its a familiar storyline. Thanks to Nollywood

Debo and co should forgive their dad and free themselves from bitterness.

Typical storyline...
We have heard and seen countless versions...!
Not forgiving in itself is a burden..
Everyone knows the right thing to do in this case...Forgive..no matter how hard it is to do!!

I'd still like to see the end of the story sha

Not to worry, I will definitely continue with the 'True Life' story in a short while.

acidtalk: Not to worry, I will definitely continue with the 'True Life' story in a short while.

U promised 2 continue d true life story in a short while, its nw 20 months, nd no hope yet.
Its a pathetic story, i jst hope they have forgiven their father nd moved on, nd let God judge him coz no sin wil go unpunished...
>>>---Cheers¡

He and his siblings should take of of his father's basic needs but that is it. The man does not deserve gifts like holidays or car e.t.c those should be the privileges a real parent who actually did the parenting and knows the meaning of sacrifice gets.

I know a man who left his ex wife to pay for the children's school fees and everything. He never pays a dime even though he earns good money. He told me that at the end of the day the children will have to forgive and take care of him in his old age anyway. These type of men do it on purpose because they believe there are no consequences. I believe such people should get only the very basic things from their children, it is way more than they deserve.