An accidental Christmas story

If I’ve learned anything these past 35 years of journalism, it’s looking for a story in every situation. It wasn’t different when I left home for the airport on December 14, except that this time, the story found me. My Uber driver started the conversation: “Are you Mr. Azu of LEADERSHIP?” he asked.

I confirmed I was but didn’t make much of his question since he could have gotten the information from Truecaller. I also found from my Truecaller that he was identified as “Doc. Jibrin.” However, in a country where people love big titles that mean nothing, anyone can call themselves anything.

Somehow, I tested my prejudice by asking him if he was a medical doctor. “I’m a paediatrician,” Jibrin replied. I paused in confusion. I have read many stories of graduate drivers or professionals doing odd jobs. Working odd jobs is hardly news in a country with 33 percent unemployment, mainly among young graduates. However, being a paediatrician Uber driver in a country with a paediatrician-patient ratio of roughly 1:525 was new for me.

We got talking. I asked him how he became an Uber driver, and he told me it was something he did as a pastime when he was not on duty twice a week at a government hospital. He told me how being an Uber driver has allowed him to meet people and how many of his passengers responded in shock whenever he told them he was a paediatrician.

He told the story of one passenger, a wealthy businessman, who offered to use his license to open a medical facility, promising him heaven on earth, but he refused.

“He gave me his number and other contact details and asked me to think about it and get back to him. He said he was running a pharmacy using a nurse’s certificate and was thinking of something bigger. I declined politely,” Jibrin said. “Something about him just didn’t connect with me.”

I asked a bit more. Where did Jibrin go to school, and why did he become a paediatrician? He flipped the roles gently and charmingly, smiling and laughing as he did so. Based on my questions, he figured I must be a senior journalist and wanted to know more about me. Did I go to school in Nigeria? Were my parents well-to-do?

I told him that I grew up in Ajegunle, one of Nigeria’s most famous ghettos, and all the schools I’ve attended – from primary to university – have been in Nigeria. One thing journalism has done for me is that it has allowed me to travel, learn, expand my network, and sharpen my curiosity whenever I meet people like him.

He smiled again, and immediately, I retook my role as interlocutor. Why did he study paediatrics, and where?

“I love babies,” the young man, likely in his late thirties, said. “I’ve always been fascinated by their tenderness, innocence, and vulnerability. If you want to know about babies, watch parents when their babies are ill. Sometimes, you don’t know who is suffering more – the babies or their parents!”

He told me he attended Medical School at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) in Ile-Ife and returned to specialise in Paediatrics. At OAU, he had an encounter that would significantly impact his life. His best friend at medical school was Chima, a bright young Igbo man with whom he immediately struck a kindred spirit. As Jibrin told me the story of Chima, I watched his countenance change and his smile disappear.

Even though the incident happened nearly 10 years ago, the pain seemed fresh in his memory.

“When Chima told me he was travelling to the East, there was no way I could have guessed that would be the last time I would see him,” Jibrin said. “On his way, the bus in which they were travelling was ambushed by armed robbers. All the passengers, including Chima, were forced to lie face down on the road and shot many times. When I saw my friend’s body, I couldn’t recognise it. That picture of his bullet-ridden body is etched in my mind!”

Chima’s medical career was not the only unfinished business when he was killed. Apart from his career and traumatised friends, Chima also left behind a girlfriend who was pregnant at the time of his death.

“I decided,” Jibrin said, “that I would be responsible for his pregnant girlfriend and the baby.”

He was as good as his word. For the next several months and in a country where religion often divides, Jibrin, a Muslim from Gombe State in the North East, took upon himself the responsibility of looking after the pregnant girlfriend of his dead friend, a Christian from the South East.

When the baby was born, her mother named her Joy. “You should have seen the baby,” Jibrin said. “She looked so much like her father. In a way, her birth brought some closure to the wound that Chima’s death inflicted.”

Jibrin struggled after medical school but kept his commitment to his friend’s girlfriend and the new baby. “Chima’s younger brother knew about this,” Jibrin said. “But he is an apprentice somewhere and can’t stand on his own feet yet.”

Three years after Joy’s birth, something dramatic happened. Her mom came over to see Jibrin with Baby Joy and asked if she could leave her with him for that weekend because she wanted to travel.

“I couldn’t say no,” Jibrin recalled. “My girlfriend was staying with me, and even though she was reluctant initially, we both agreed that looking after Joy for one weekend wasn’t too much.”

And so, off Joy’s mother went. One weekend led to another and another. And she wasn’t coming back. Jibrin’s girlfriend started asking questions. At this time, Joy’s mother had become unreachable, and nothing he told his confused and angry girlfriend seemed to make sense. “She kept asking me to come clean, to level with her,” Jibrin said. “It soon became obvious she wanted me to confess what I had not done.”

The relationship broke up. Jibrin, unable to look after Joy and still find his footing as a young doctor, decided to take Joy to his elder sister in Jos. There, she asked all the difficult questions his girlfriend had asked and more. She begged Jibrin to tell her the truth: Was Joy his child?

He couldn’t convince her but managed to suspend her doubts. One or two years later, he got married after a problematic negotiation during which he told his new wife that she must accept and treat Joy as her daughter as a precondition for the marriage.

Fast-forward. Jibrin has three children—all girls—two younger ones aged six and three and his adopted daughter, Joy, who is now nine and in junior secondary school. “She tops her class,” he told me proudly as we drove into the airport.

And then he told me something else. He’s been wrestling with the question of how to raise Joy – as a Muslim, which he is, or as a Christian, which his friend Joy’s father was? “The matter has troubled me so much I had to seek advice from a cleric who said I should bring her up in my religion.”

As Jibrin dropped me off at the car park attached to the terminal building, I thought to myself: I think the cleric is right but for a different reason. Once you have formally adopted the child, how you raise her is entirely up to you. Most parents might agree, however, that once the child reaches a certain age, often young adulthood, what they do with their lives is entirely up to them.

And don’t be surprised if that includes creating new idols in a networked shrine with limitless potential for good and evil. It’s enough to know that you did your best by them while you could.

Ishiekwene is the editor-in-chief of LEADERSHIP and author of the new book Writing for Media and Monetising It.