← Konnected Minds Podcast with Derrick Abaitey
Konnected Minds Podcast with Derrick Abaitey
Segment: African Love Is Duty, Not Romance - What I Learned From My Parents' Imperfect Marriage.
00:09:31
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Transcript36 lines
- [00:00]
A
Explain.
- [00:02]
B
I said it in an interview and I don't know if my mother would agree. You know, I don't know that my father had the emotional equipment to raise a child. And I think that there are a lot of African men who don't have the emotional equipment. They hide it. My father was wise and self. He was self controlled enough not to take it out of me. So many fathers who scream and shout and beat is because they don't have the emotional equipment to raise complex, to manage emotional complexity. So my father, what he did was he retreated into himself. So my father only visited me once when I was in boarding school. My father wasn't the kind of father that would train me, give me advice, he would provide, but that was it. He was not. He didn't. I don't think he could handle the emotional demands.
- [00:48]
A
Did you have relationship with him?
- [00:50]
B
Yes, but it wasn't a deep relationship. It was. I wasn't afraid of him. I was no fear. He never beat me. He never raised his voice at me. So there was no fear. There was just no closeness. There was a love, but there was no closeness.
- [01:01]
A
So this drive came from my mother.
- [01:05]
B
Came from my mother.
- [01:05]
A
What did she do?
- [01:06]
B
She was a business person from young. She had at the point, she was running a restaurant. She was importing clothes. You know, she was. My mother had like four business at the same time while she was a teacher in the civil service. So I think they're just watching my. So my mother did the emotional labor of raising me and she was very entrepreneurial and very enterprising. My mother always was pushing. So I tell people that the reason why it was easy for me to. But now feminism is global conversation. Like it didn't. Feminism wasn't. It was a no brainer to me because I watched my mother.
- [01:42]
A
Right?
- [01:43]
B
There was no can a woman lead the home? She wasn't. She. My father was the head of the home because my mother is a born again Christian, but she was the de facto head of the home. You know, there was no debate. She was the one that would say okay. She was the one that would discuss with my father and say okay, it's time for us to build a house.
- [02:01]
A
Is that because she had more money than.
- [02:02]
B
No, no, she didn't. He had. But he trusted. That's what I said. My father was emotionally secure. He didn't struggle to. To be the de facto head of the home. He didn't. He acknowledged her strength. She was the planner, she was the strategist. She was the operational guru. And he Just allowed her. So she's the one that built the first house. She's the one that determined what school I should go to. She's the one that said all the decisions, he outsourced them to her and trusted her completely.
- [02:30]
A
And in your view, that marriage you saw was a good marriage?
- [02:34]
B
I think so. It was not a perfect marriage. Could have done better in many personal things that I don't want to go into, but there was mutual respect. They both respected each other deeply. He loved her and she loved him. Not in the way that the west defines love in terms of romance, but in the way that we define love in Africa, in terms of duty.
- [02:55]
A
Okay.
- [02:56]
B
You know, so they. They had their best interest at heart today.
- [03:01]
A
If you. If you were to put yourself in your father's shoes and be. And him being the little boy, what would you have done differently?
- [03:13]
B
If I was my father as a.
- [03:14]
A
Little boy and you were the father, what would you have done differently?
- [03:17]
B
Oh, if I was the father of my father, I would have not wanted him to be like me. So I think that when I hear the history of my dad, his father was a great man. When you get into constitutional law in Nigerian University, when I was doing constitutional law, one of the first case laws you would read was about my grandfather. And so my grandfather was a very strong and dominant man, and I think he expected my father to be the same. And so in responding to a strong man. So there's a book Chinu Achebe wrote, no Longer at Ease, and he says, fire gives birth to smoldering ashes. So that's what happened to my grandfather and my father, right? Yeah. So my grandfather, the fire burnt out and became calm. And, you know, and so if I was my. If I was my father's father, I wouldn't have put so much pressure on him to be like me. I would have allowed him to come into his own self on his own terms. And I think that's where the problem is.
- [04:13]
A
Yeah, I love it. So this spark of you going after change and wanting to be an entrepreneur, when did that start?
- [04:22]
B
I didn't want to be an entrepreneur. I wanted. And, you know, this is something that people can parody. I wanted to be important, but it wasn't necessarily as an entrepreneur. I wanted. I. Yes, I became. I'm an accident. I'm a reluctant entrepreneur. I became an entrepreneur because there was no other way to carry out the visions I wanted apart from entrepreneurship. But at the same time as I was becoming an entrepreneur, I was afraid of entrepreneurship because I thought, this is so Risky. What if I fail? So I did it because I had to, not because I wanted to, but as a child, I had images of. I wanted to be an important voice. I wanted to do important things. I wanted to. I always. When I was younger, I used to say I wanted to be the person that if the Queen of England was visiting Nigeria and they selected 50 people, I'll be one of them. But how exactly? I didn't. I just knew.
- [05:14]
A
I have a strong question. Were you ever bullied when you were a child? School circumstances?
- [05:21]
B
Yes, I think. I think so, yes. Yes, yes, yes. I didn't call it bullying then. I wouldn't call it bullying. Bullying is the closest word to describe it. Yes. I was very effeminate as a child, and there are still hints of it if. If anybody observes me. And so boys would always bully me for their feministy. And they used to come in as a second. Used to call me something in Yoruba called balogunlen yo berrin baolulu, means the chief that is behind the women. Because all my friends were girls, I spent more time with girls. I felt safer with girls. I. So, yeah, so in. In secondary school, I was bullied a lot.
- [05:57]
A
So you wanted to be important for who?
- [06:00]
B
To who? I don't know. I just. So there's something. There's a movie called IO lady that's a biopic of Margaret Thatcher, and something that. She's the character I said in the movie resonates with me deeply. She's speaking to her assistant, and she said, one's life must mean something. So I think as a child, I just knew that I wanted my life to mean something. Like, what was the point of existing and being alive if your life didn't mean something? I didn't yet know what the life was going to mean, but I wanted it to mean something.
- [06:31]
A
Do you think that put a lot of pressure?
- [06:32]
B
Oh, absolutely. Oh, absolutely. You know, I looked at my schedule. My schedule for next year is still busier than 80% of people in the world, but it's the lightest schedule I ever had in my life.
- [06:44]
A
Wow.
- [06:45]
B
I looked at two months, and I'm like, I have nothing to do in two months. Like, I have not. I mean, I'm doing my show, but nothing. And. And my friend said, I can't believe it. That's because. Yes. I've always worked hard. I've always been driven. If there's an empty space, I want to fill it. You know, if there's an empty thing, I've always put pressure on myself, on a young child. When I was in secondary school, I was so busy in the press club, I used to write an article. Three articles a day or one article. Forgetting that I was so busy that the Press Club teacher, Mr. Tete, Ahmed Tete, summoned me to the principal's office to stop me from writing. Wow. Yes. Yes. That's how prolific I was.
- [07:22]
A
When you really think about it, is this how you want your life to be?
- [07:26]
B
Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Two things. One, I like being. I like being productive. I like work a lot. Yeah. So being. Yes. Being busy for the things that matter to me. Doing things that make a difference in people's lives. It's important. The other day I was doing an interview in Lagos and the lady asked me, I haven't done interviews for. So she asked me a question and I said, I am. I am privileged. It is important to me to talk to. It's important to me to live the kind of life I live visibly in order to inspire other young people who want to live that kind of life. So for me, it's not enough to live to be in the world. If my being is not making a difference in the world is not enough. It's not enough. So the life I am living is precisely the life I want. I say people that do. I like being a celebrity because of the effect it has on people when they meet me. Somebody came back and said. Somebody said to me a few days ago that I am grateful. If not, it's useless. If not, I have no use for it. Said, I'm grateful that you are. Two people said it in one week. I'm grateful that you are as authentic as you come across on television. And I said, that's the reason why I'm on television, so that it matters to somebody else that I live my life that way. So, yes, this, the way I'm living my life is exactly how I want to live it.
- [08:56]
A
At 19, you were diagnosed with high blood pressure.
- [08:59]
B
Yes. Yes.
- [08:59]
A
Did such acts not contribute to.
- [09:02]
B
They did. But here's the deal. If you asked me, would I rather have gone back to 19 and not laid the foundations of my life the way I did? If I was going to live a boring life, 19 and have no high blood pressure, I live the life that I've lived and have the high blood pressure, which one would I choose? I choose the life I have now. The high blood pressure is not necessary. I could have. There are people who have lived the kind of life I've lived who don't have high blood pressure. Connected Minds podcast.