Author’s Preface

We are always on a personal journey together. A journey from here to where we yearn to be. Where we’ve always dreamt to be.
We are surrounded by abundance and yet some in this world suffer from deprivation and its effect on their families, especially children, their communities and their outlook on the future. Why is this so when those who are Christians proclaim that over 2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ came to give us life in abundance? Is it not true or has He simply failed? Or perhaps the world have failed to understand and realise the full import of this promise.
The purpose of this book is simple; to chart a clear and definite path to understanding and realisation of the content and meaning of life by identifying where we are, how we got here, where we are meant to be and how to get there.
This book is a testament to the vital role of God, The Force, or whatever label you might choose to represent the purpose of life, your own natural attributes of vision, faith, self-belief, love, commitment and wisdom in all that we do. This is the way to self-fulfilment.

Introduction
The Blissful Slum
I lived with my maternal grandmother from infancy till I was about twelve years old. I remember, when I was about five or six years old, she had a blind friend living next door to us. Unlike those that you see begging on the streets across Nigeria today, my “Mama’s” blind friend, “Iya Kekere” (the little mother) lived in relative affluence. Her family house was of traditional African sub-urban architecture of the ‘50s, with very large backyard, at least it felt so then, and a tiny grove that provided a cool shade from the scotching tropical sun.

I looked forward to that time of the evening when I would be called upon to go and bring “Iya Kekere” over. She was not that much bigger than me in physical size, but her aura was redolent of certain intangible spiritual benevolence that I was sensitive to in a childlike way. Through the din of neighbourhood activities, I would proudly walk her to my grandma and back home later on at twilight. It was a rare quality of companionship that they shared, “Iya Kekere” and “Mama”, my grandma. I felt a deep empathy for their friendship, one that I did not understand but was to form a strong fundamental impression in my psyche about the true essence of amity. Even beyond this, I was later to discover that in those experiences was the seed, an unidentified revelation of who I am.

I had a mythical father as a child. He was mainly present in the many bizarre forms conjured in my consoling imagination. One of the frequent images that represented him in my private world was the “Pegasus” of a Texaco filling station on the 7th Day Adventist road, in Oke-Bola, Ibadan. I still cannot explain why that was.

Everyone sang his praises, almost with reverence, certainly with admiration. I needed not aspire. I was already accomplished as the first child of this incredible persona. In power and awe, he was the nearest human to God. I can recall ever seeing him only once or twice during the first eight years of my life. That was late one evening when we visited Chief Obafemi Awolowo, a pioneer of immense stature,  and the renowned leader of the Action Group, a predominant political party in the Western Region of 1950s Nigeria.
 
Adolescence and early adulthood was a vibrant time of exuberant fun, enjoyment and seeming happiness. But yet, those were the years of straying from self, from “life and genuine happiness” while I waited in confused frustration to become my father’s son. I was furtively buried under the contrary influences that circumstances assailed me with – an African polygamous home with all the jealousies and malevolent threats against the vulnerable innocence of children, especially the first male child, the heir, a home without the father I was so secretly, inexplicably proud to be the son of. I was narcissistically my own male role model. And then I was sent away to the boarding school. With the rebundant (redundant and abundant) energy of a sensitive and clandestinely frustrated youth without purpose, I was soon ensconced in a bizarre and unfamiliar landscape of life.

By my early 20s, I had blossomed into a non-entity and it crystalised for the first time that life was leaving me behind and nobody apparently noticed or cared enough to reach out to help. It was not sufficient any longer to just be my father’s “nominal” first child, especially now that my lack of personal accomplishment was estranging me even more from the superficial relationship we had. I was now inwardly desperate and even more confused because I was sure my grandma loved me. I was to discover that there is a depth to life that we all must plumb. I had with careless innocence, left my identity and purpose behind in my neglected childhood. I had to return to find myself, my purpose, my future, MY LIFE. I had to go back to rescue myself.

That was the start of an awesome journey which is still on-going, and I thank God, I survived the early odyssey of self re-discovery without which my life today would have been a mere sham, perhaps embellished with activities that are rife with pretenses, distracting myself from the truth with all kinds of indulgences as many do. What follows is a map of my universe as I have now come to know it. A map of your universe, our universe.  A map that shows every ernest reader his/her way to what we all desperately yearn for, a truly meaningful life. There is only one story, but we all tell it with our lives in our own individually different and unique ways. This is the story of life from my personal frame of reference. Read, enjoy and be encouraged.

Prince Adesina Haastrup
Bristol, 2008

A Journey to Self

When I awoke that Sunday morning, after a restful night’s sleep, new thoughts wafted into my mind, inspired, I believe, by my telephone conversation the night before with Ndidi, my new friend. In my easy Sunday morning frame of mind, I was inclined to just let them drift, or just casually contemplate the day ahead as these thoughts transmute into a more sedate musing. But there was an intent resilience that anchored them resolutely to my mind. So I conceded.

I saw Dr “Ndidi” Nnoli-Edozien for the first time at a press conference in May 2008. I had flown down from Bristol a couple of days earlier to attend the IMPC Press conference publicising “The Entrepreneur”, a new thirteen part reality tv series that Twelvesprings Studios, my film and television company in Bristol United Kingdom had been contracted to co-produce and direct. My casual impression of her was that she had a gracefully stunning presence. This fact was publicly remarked upon, albeit crudely, by the Master of Ceremony a few times during the proceeding. And then she spoke about her passion to empower the poor. I immediately recognised I had to get to know her.

We met briefly after the event and shared thoughts on issues relating to social and economic development in Nigeria. I sensed that we were also naturally sizing each other up. She is young, bright and beautiful and I might have been handsome in my youth,  but I am now in my mid-fifties, although mentally agile and still very passionate about life. Somewhere in this unlikely mix, it seemed we both found an unspoken yearn to be “friends”. She was going to be the principal judge on the television series.

That was it until I returned to Nigeria for the production in July. Ndidi’s first appearance on the set was to complain about the candidate’s chair and then promptly proceeded with replacing and adjusting the decor, all without consultation. Unknown to her, I was already nestled in the control room observing all these antics on the monitors. A momentary confusion was induced by this seemingly incongruous behaviour. I decided that as the director I had to re-establish order and protocol.

I had a direct link to the studio set via p.a systems and other audio-visual aids. Suddenly, out of the loudspeakers installed inside the studio, a clear,  and imperious voice “commanded” the production crew that the studio set should immediately be restored to its original state. Addressing this command to the crew was all the deference I could muster on behalf of my prospective friend under this awkward circumstance. I cannot afford to be regarded as weak by my crew members, and yet it is not proper that I am openly disrespectful towards her.   

The sound of my voice appeared to have taken Ndidi by surprise and she wanted to know who the invisible “master” was with so much power.  She was told  by the production crew that that was the director. From that moment on, her nick-name for me was “the demi-god”.

A few evenings during the making of this series, Ndidi and I will retire to the green-room as soon as we “wrap” for the day. While we waited for our respective transportation, we will engage in profound discussions about the journey of life. It felt as if we were very comfortable in each others company, just like old friends, and I wondered about that. She touched my soul with her brutal honesty about herself and some of the deep anxieties and frustrations that afflict her life. While I was not that open about my own fears,  her candor eased me to that deep place in my memory of childhood, where my “mama” had planted the essence of honour and true amity. There was an alchemy in the air around us, one that successfully bridged what to me was an evident generation gap. My loyalty ergo was totally surrendered to this germinal friendship. However, I entrenched myself on the outer edge of romance, holding fast to reason and principles while rebuking sentiment and not allowing myself to tip over. I am a responsible married man, and she is a respectable and bright young “African” woman who more than likely is far more pragmatic and cerebral to indulge in such fancies. Besides, far as I was aware she was married too. Reason and principles will prevail. It turned out that this was the beginning of yet another journey to self, back to the unfinished work that I am.