All About My Nigerian Father

Dear Daughter,

      this is the first time i’m calling someone my Daughter.

I’m an Ijaw man one of the most powerful tribes in ngeria and oil producing area .in Ijaw language your name is Tamara–Emi which means there is God and really there is God.it is only God that has made it possible for us to meet again in this world.

My Father

I want you to come to nigeria very soon to know your origin ‘cos you have an interesting origin.

    Like father like daughter.i speak up to fourteen languages . ijaw, english, french, german, italian, spanish, yoruba, hausa, igbo, urobo, benin, calabar, idoma and arabic.

   i’m a security guard earning a very small salary.

This is my father.

My father was deported back to Nigeria when I was just a baby. I only reconnected with him when I was in my early twenties. I have still never seen him or visited Nigeria. He lives in Lagos.

I communicate with my father mostly by phone and through e-mails on a weekly basis. This blog is dedicated to him. From my father’s e-mails, I have been able to gather a detailed picture of his life story which I will share with my readers.

In the Beginning…

My father was born in an Ijaw village called Dibigbene, from the Arogbo clan, in Ondo State in 1949. My father’s mother’s name was Ajolowo. Ajolowo is not an Ijaw name but an Itsekiri name. In Itsekiri this name means “Take good care of her”. She gave birth to five boys and one girl. She died in 1978 while my father was in Canada. I asked my father why my grandmother had an Itsekiri name and he said that her father’s friend was an Itsekiri and had given her this name. She had no Ijaw name. My father’s father’s name was Daniel Fufunitei Oniyemofe and my father believes he was born in about 1900. His father’s name was Juwei and his mother’s name was Oluwabanwo, a Yoruba slave (See: Oniyemofe: The Story of a Name).  My grandfather was a fisherman and a maker of native gin which he would sell to people as far as Lagos. In his travels selling gin, he met many educated people and decided that he wanted to be the first Arogbo to send his son to secondary school.

My Father Makes a Promise

At the age of 9, in 1958, my father saw his first White man. This man was a Lutheran Christian missionary who had come to spread the gospel to the people of Dibigbene. My father was greatly impressed by this White man. At this tender age, he had come to believe that White people were very clever and inventive.  He promised himself that when he grew up he would marry a White woman and have half White children….and eventually one day he did….

Posts about my Nigerian father:

The Road to Arogbo: Reflections on Slavery, Kinship, and Going Home

Oniyemofe The Story of a Name

How I was Destined to be the First Arogbo Ijaw Canadian

A Series of Fortunate Events: How I Found My Father

German, My Father and I

“Auf Wiedersehen”…”Auf Wiederhoeren”: Phone Calls from My Father

My Father is Older than Nigeria: Nigeria at 50

My Father and his Grand-Nephew Tamara-Emo-Emi