CHAPTER ONE: GROWING UP My greatest influences were my father and elder brother, Joseph—“Jo,” as he proudly called himself. From my father, William Kena Adzegeh, I learned hard work, honesty, and integrity. A stern disciplinarian, his strictness was sharpened by his enlistment in the Nigerian Army in the mid-1960s, when soldiers were truly soldiers. Growing up was a mix of fleeting joy and long stretches of want, framed by the rigid Christian discipline of the NKST church. The rules were endless: church attendance was non-negotiable, school was compulsory, and even staring at someone eating was forbidden. Accepting gifts was punishable, and stealing was unthinkable. My mother, Kude—a princess from the royal Apuun Asera family—was even stricter. Her intolerance for dishonesty instilled in me a lifelong abhorrence of theft. One childhood incident seared this lesson into me: at age four, I stole a fish head from her pot. When she discovered it, she beat me and rubbed pepper in my eyes. The pain etched a permanent fear of stealing into my soul. My father’s enlistment in the Nigerian Army in 1967 changed everything. I was barely three years old when he left Gboko for Zaria, and I still remember chasing after the rumbling truck that carried him away, crying as he tossed me a coin that clattered endlessly on the tarmac. For two years he was gone, and when he returned on leave, the transformation was startling. The easygoing man I knew had become a stern, uniformed figure—starched khaki, polished boots, and the aura of a soldier hardened by war. Soon after, he took me with him to Obinze near Owerri, uprooting me from my familiar world in Benue. At not yet five years old, I was thrust into a new environment: bamboo barracks, thick forests, and the constant tension of the civil war. Life there was harsh. Hostilities simmered between soldiers’ families and the surrounding villagers, and even among the barracks children themselves. My frail build made me an easy target until one day my father intervened. Watching me struggle in yet another fight, he ordered me back into the fray instead of letting me escape. That day, I discovered a hidden reserve of courage, and for the first time, I won. My father’s lesson was clear: never back down, fight fair, and face life head-on. (Continues Saturday, August 15).

Posted: 9hours ago

Author: Editor in Chief

Current date: 14 August 2026