Ola Nike: The Accident That Showed Me Father’s Love

Ola Nike-Ballanaija.com March 4, 2025

?I was the near perfect child; soft-spoken, calm, cool, shy, and reserved, who would however, somehow, unbelievably, eventually run away from home twice in her life.

I was the one who never got into trouble.

?The easiest child to raise.

I wasn’t adventurous, not self-seeking.

Not willing to go beyond the boundaries of instruction.

Until I finished school, started NYSC and a few weeks before passing out, I decided to learn how to drive.

Learning to drive was easy.

??I paid Azeez, my mother’s?mechanic, who also occasionally drives her when she has important events to attend.

?We completed the training in just two days.

?Azeez took me from the local roads to the expressway in that short time.

?One memorable experience on the expressway was when he reclined his chair and told me to observe the trailers and the road.

?He challenged me to decide whether I wanted to succeed as a driver or allow the trailers to?jam?us.

?I chose to focus and succeed, but the latter still happened to me.

?I drove cautiously, feeling good about my progress.

??I was no longer afraid of the blaring horns of the trailers or the aggressive drivers racing past me without a care.

?I had put up the ‘L’ sign, indicating that I was a learner.

Some older men even winked at me while I was at the wheel, and others gave me a thumbs-up or smiled.

?It was an encouraging day, and my driving future seemed bright.

I imagined driving to Orita-Challenge or Aleshinloye Market for my usual shopping trips.

I pictured the surprise on my father’s face when he found out that I could now drive him.

?When the moment finally came, he was indeed shocked, but in a different way.

Azeez was snoring while I, a rookie, was driving him.

He was an illiterate, a man of simple means who spoke vulgarity in vernacular.

?Dark and stocky, sometimes jovial and other times dead pan serious.

He was interested in one thing–his money.

He threw me the occasional jabs while learning, torturing me with words that did nothing but reduce my composure.

I drove towards New-Garage, finally feeling self-assured.

Azeez was now wide awake.

There was a traffic jam so I began to match brakes.

As the traffic eased a little, Azeez began to shout, “Press the turtle. Oya go forward.”

Cars were honking behind me and in the midst of the confusion, I matched the accelerator a little too much and the car moved and hit the Micra in front.

Have you ever hit an Ibadan Micra cab? Or ever heard of its drivers and how mean they can be?

Generous with curses, hard, brutal and lacking in mercy.

The drivers flew out shouting, “Owo alajeseku la fi ra oko yi.” I bought this car with co-operative money.

?By now, a teeming crowd had gathered.

?Trust Ibadan people with not minding their business.

?Everyone began to talk at once.

?“Who gave this little girl a fine car like this to drive?

This girl cannot be more than a secondary school student. Who are her parents?”

I looked for Azeez but couldn’t find him.

??It was at that instant that I knew he had slipped away like the disciples of Jesus left him after he was captured.

?However, he had gone somewhere safe to at least inform my mother. He called mother to say “A ti jaamu.” We have jammed the car.

?Mother would meet me at the police station later.

My fear was my father.

This was his only car apart from his official car.

I was released from the police station after agreeing to pay for the repair. The DPO also assisted me.

?He offered to pay part of the repair for the two public cars. I was to bear my own cost.

Father was away in Lagos, due to return on Friday.

That day was a Tuesday.

I begged the panel beater to finish his work on Wednesday, so that the mechanic would do his own repair on Thursday, and the car would be neatly parked in the compound before Father returned.

But the panel beater failed me.

?I couldn’t get the car out as of Thursday, so I packed my load and left home.

I returned to my apartment in Lagos where I was serving. That was the first time I’d run away from home.

Father knew I was back in Lagos.

Friday was my CDS, so he parked at Redemption Camp, the venue of my CDS and waited for me as usual.

?I spoke to him on the phone and told him to go home without me.

He wasn’t pleased with that.

I was the apple of his eye and he looked forward to our weekend trips together.

He got home and got to know.

“Come back home”, he said. “Your mother has explained to me.

Go to Berger and take the next available bus to Ibadan.” I thought he was joking.

I reluctantly went back home when he wouldn’t stop calling to know where I was.

?I stood by the gate and couldn’t still enter.

I felt guilty and it was overwhelming.

That was the car he bought for himself after he retired. I just spoiled it.

Father didn’t say anything to me about it that day.

Not the next.

Amidst this, he told me to go inside and eat pounded yam.

?That was the first evidence that my father loved me wholeheartedly.

?I knew before then but I saw it clearly that day.

Such gracious, pure unadulterated love.

?

Feature Image by August De Richelieu for Pexels