By Isaac Umelo
When it comes to business and finance, I think my father was way ahead of his time. Talk of multiplication of income, multiple streams of income, investments, my father, with no Western education was up to them. My father owned a 9-ton lorry which was used to transport palm oil and other products to Lagos and the Northern cities. That made him a transporter. The main error my father made was in not locating his acumen where it would have profited him best and sustained his family long after his death.
Umelo Unogu located himself in a very small village called Umuene, about two miles from Umuoba, a railway terminal town from where palm oil and palm wine were shipped to the Northern states. Umuene was only twelve miles from Aba, the very centre of business in Eastern Nigeria then. If my father had applied the same business sense he used to dominate his host community in Ngwaland at Aba, and acquired a minuscule of the properties he had at Umuene, he would be ranking with the Ojukwus’ of Nnewi and the Ujus’ of Nkwerre. Again if my father had some political sagacity, he would have been a spokesman for where he domiciled; made it to parliament as many of those who had his level of education did. Nonetheless, my father was a noted member of all the local associations at his home and in Ngwaland. Today we would call those associations, cults. Some of their celebrations were secret but there was nothing untoward about them. They were respected groups aspired to by successful young men as members. Membership gave you not only respect but privileges within and outside the area since the societies were spread out all through Igboland. You became worthy of trust in any negotiation.
My father was a banker of repute. Borrowers lined up on Sunday mornings when the righteous should be in church, to collect money from his deep vault. Interest rate was astronomical but who cared. Borrowers were in different categories. Some borrowed for their business which meant purchasing bicycles which was the main means of transportation. Others borrowed to pay the colonial tax, a default of which landed one in prison. The most risky lending was to those who borrowed to marry their first or additional wives. The risk is obvious; the new wife kept her husband from his daily income and limited the chance of loan return. Often, the man did little work until a first child was born.
The interest on borrowed money was high. My father arranged the money in a shallow wooden tray in tranches of twenty pieces of one shilling each which equalled one pound. The borrower of one pound returned an interest of one shilling every Sunday. In a 52-week year, one pound earned an interest of 52 shillings, a whooping interest of 260%pa, not bad for an amateur, unlicensed banker. But that’s not all. As a show of gratitude, the borrower would bring palm wine, cocks and yams to my father on the day he would collect the money. Parts of these agricultural products were given to those who introduced the business to the banker (middlemen). As collateral for the loan, the borrower would grant a lease of large tracts of palm oil plantations for my father to harvest until the loan was repaid. Most of the transactions were unwritten but supported by trust, and the witnesses from both sides.
After my father’s death, we discovered a big hole under his bed which was deceptively covered with a cement plate. Money and the names of borrowers were saved in the black hole. However, when we met some of the debtors, it was clear that placing a machine gun on their faces could not force out any part of the money owed. The men themselves needed rehabilitation.
While my father lived, it was easy for him to enforce the covenants and collect both loans and collaterals. At his death, the oldest of the male children was fifteen years, a protégé to one of his friends. The wives were never empowered to inherit him. So the debts lapsed and the owners held to the money and harvested the plantations. Any claim we may have had was vitiated by the civil war when our family ran back to our ancestral home in Nkwerre division. Who would dare to return to Umuene today to claim lands and other properties bequeathed to our father in exchange for loans taken by the owners of the land decades ago?
In those days too, there was a subtle form of slavery which my father did not participate in but many of his contemporaries did. When a borrower defaulted, he offered one of his daughters as wife to his creditor as final settlement. This is evident today by the presence of “strange women” in some families in our area, whose origin is hard to trace. However, every child is a bonafide member of the family. I have known some elderly men take back children of their “strange wives” to be introduced to their mother’s families. Strange here means that the woman wasn’t properly married; she came as a gift to settle debt. It’s a major event where the man and all his family members travel miles carrying drinks, food and condiments to his in-laws (the relations of such a woman). He establishes friendship built on a solid relationship. It’s often said that a man’s in-laws are his third kinsmen (his father’s and mother’s people being his first and second kinsmen). This statement played out during the civil war when those who were sacked from their homes found safe heavens in the liberated homes of their in-laws.
Because, none of my brothers was old enough to apprentice my father while he lived, no child was able to inherit his astuteness and business sense. To avoid the influence of pampering mothers, my father often sent my elder brothers to live with school headmasters and master traders who were expected to inculcate discipline in them. This again was why his legacies of wealth and business sagacity could not be inherited by his children.
FARMER
My father was a farmer of repute. He was in fact one of the biggest farmers in our town. He achieved the feat just a few years after he returned from Ngwaland to settle at home. The most common farm product was yam and a man’s ability was measured by the size of his yam barns. While most of his contemporaries owned one or two barns, my father stored his harvest in four. He had a large barn for the most common specie of yam called Ji Osa (or Ji Ocha in central Igbo, or white yam in English). This specie is white inside, same as is eaten today in most homes.
Besides Ji Osa, my father cultivated other species. Ji Obara was a rare kind of yam, yellow inside and had a yummy feel in the mouth when eaten. It was the yam for royalty with its peculiar flavour. My father kept a special barn for Ji Obara from where he supplied his best friends and his fellow holders of Nze title. His most popular and money spinning yam was the Ji Ashiri. Short and sturdy like a cylinder, Ji Ashiri was highly valued by those who farmed it. I can still remember my father, wearing a panama hat inside the yam shed. He carried his palm wine in an okuku (a cup crafted from melon fruit), his tobacco pouch by his side, seated behind his workers to sell his Ji Ashiri in Nkwoji market. When any serious buyer approaches he would move towards the heap to advertise his prime product. ‘’It’s Ji Ashiri,” he would say. “It has its salt and pepper inside. All you need do is to boil and eat.” Well, we didn’t just boil and eat. Ours was boiled in a well spiced beverage of nchanwu leaves (scent leaves or efirin (Yoruba)) and uziza seeds (seeds of medicinal vegetables), a delight to the pallet. Sales made, my father would retire to the royal shed in the market where the Nzes (titled men) sat with the Eze to entertain themselves and to dish out judgement on those who infringed the various laws of Nkwoji market.
Pa Umelo Unogu has been dead since April 1953. In 1891, he built the first house in our village roofed with corrugated iron sheets. The roof had a strong timber ceiling and upper chamber where precious family possessions were stored for safety. There was a wooden ladder which enabled both young and old to climb in and down the upper chamber. To the local community, ours was the first storey building where you could climb into the hot and unventilated upper chamber which provided a play tryst for children. My father chaired the powerful Nze fraternity in our town, Owerre-Nkwoji. Before him, houses carried thatched roof made of palm fronds. Wall was of mud. Our house was plastered with cement so thick it was hard to bury a nail. The roofing sheet, brought from the present Bonny in Bayelsa, has not been known to leak, over 100years after.
My father teamed up with his bosom friend and cousin, Dem Eburuaja, to develop our present family home in a more expansive estate outside his own Unogu compound where he was the oldest son and prospective heir. He had resident servants coming from as far as Mbano in Okigwe division. They had names like Nwokocha and Nwaiweagwu. They worked his farms and climbed the tall palm trees with their ette (special waist rope) to bring down the nuts. He was a big name in town and in Nkwerre division. My father’s funeral when he died was phenomenal. His Ekpe cult members created frightening sound of elegy from a hidden platform covered with red cloth and Omu Nkwu (flowering palm leaves). Drummers with their talking drums from Ngwaland were there to entertain and the mysterious Okonko masquerades, rarely seen in public added glamour to the occasion.
My father didn’t belong to our only church, the CMS Church in Owerre-Nkworji. But he led his fellow heathens to church on the yearly harvest day. They brought to the church the biggest yams harvested that year as thanksgiving to God and joined in the merriment of the occasion. Cain has much to learn from my father.
May his adventurous spirit rest in peace!
Concluded
Isaac Ezenwa Umelo is an octogenarian Electrical Engineer who has authored many books, short stories and articles. He resides in Lagos with his family.
