The first time Clinton Ayabowei was posted to Ekeni as a teacher, he got there on a Friday. He took the whole of Saturday moving around town, greeting and being greeted in return, and getting to know the people, virtually in an anonymous capacity. It was hard to believe that this 14-year old lad was a teacher. On Sunday morning, in the absence of the resident teacher who had gone to Warri for an urgent assignment, Clinton Ayabowei had to take up the task of conducting the service.
To the consternation of the congregation, he read the Bible in Nembe, preached to the old people in a cool, calm and assured voice, and got everyone wondering how this was possible. He was just one day old in the community, and yet he was conducting the service with such confidence, and reading from the Nembe Bible so fluently. From that day onward, everyone began to look at Clinton with reverence. In everyday conversation, he came to be known, called and addressed as Kala Teacher, “kala” being the Ijaw word for small.
“My lifetime lesson is this,” said Ayabowei, as if recapping his first sermon to the people of Ekeni. “Don’t be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself. Be not anxious about what you eat, drink or wear. God knows what is good for you. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness. The emphasis is on righteousness. That is the only condition. Everything else will be added to you, only if you are righteous. If you seek the kingdom of God, and are proven to be righteous, all other things will be added to you.”
This was, in fact, the kernel of the sermon Ayabowei delivered that Sunday morning in Ekeni, and the grain of that teaching has been with him to this day. A good example of what this entails, for instance, is that Ayabowei did not set out to be a lawyer. Someone came up with the idea that he would make a good lawyer.
He did not even plan to contest the election into the Rivers State House of Assembly. People simply came forward and persuaded him to do so. People came knocking on his door, pleading with him to represent them. He was just not interested. He did not go out of his way to seek office as a legislator. He was not keen on it, but God made it possible.
The old people in that congregation at Ekeni came face to face with a new reality that day. Wonders shall never end, they said to one another. Even the children were inspired by the sight of this small teacher standing on the pulpit, and dishing out the word of God. The sight was to become familiar as the weeks passed, and the popularity of the small teacher spread beyond the shores of Ekeni.
Ayabowei passed out from Standard Six in 1954. At that time, there was no secondary school in the whole of the area now known as Southern Ijaw local government. Even Bishop Dimeari Grammar School, Yenagoa, came into being the following year, 1955. So, he set his eyes on Kalabari National College, Buguma, or else Baptist High School, Onitsha. As God would have it, an order came from Port Harcourt that all candidates who came first, second and third in the Standard Six exams should be employed automatically.
That was how Ayabowei was engaged as a teacher. He did not have to write a letter of application for the job. He got it on merit. He was in first position, and was posted to St Stephen’s Primary School, Amassoma. Ayabowei proceeded to Amassoma in high spirits to resume work, his mind set on what life in Amassoma would be like, and even more importantly, what it would be like to stand before a blackboard, chalk in hand, and teach pupils in a classroom. When he reported for work, however, the headmaster told him that he had engaged too many teachers already, and he couldn’t possibly accommodate one more.
Ayabowei felt let down, and had no choice but to return to Otuan. When he reported the situation to his father, Biaketon told his son not to worry. He had contacts in Ekeowei, and there was sure to be an opening in the bigger school there. The following morning, the fisherman set sail with his fourteen-year old son.
Ekeowei was the centre for the whole of Southern Ijaw at the time, and pastors held sway even in job placement. Pastors had the powers to recruit teachers and post them to disparate stations as they saw fit. Whistling, humming and singing aloud from time to time, the fisherman steered his canoe down the course of the river, hoping for the best, and giving words of encouragement to his son all the way to Ekeowei.
Father and son were just in time to see the pastor at the waterfront. He was about to board a canoe and row out of Ekeowei on a mission. They waved frantically to him, approached with hurried steps after tying their canoe securely, and told him the hardluck story from Amassoma. The pastor looked through a list in his file, ran his fore-finger down the row of names, and identified the name mentioned by the young boy.
“There it is,” he said. “Ayabowei. The very first chance will be given to you.”
Jeremiah and his son thanked the pastor effusively, and watched him set out on his journey. Ayabowei was overjoyed. Having come all the way from Otuan, the fisherman decided to see his good old friend, Ominimi Ekeuwei, at whose place Clinton would stay. The journey back to Otuan was faster as they paddled with joyful light-heartedness, arriving in the evening of that Friday.
Two days later, on Sunday morning, Ayabowei had to accompany his mother to Amassoma. His grandmother, Ayakpo, had a sister called Akpoeride who came in from Lagos on a visit. As a good in-law, Jeremiah Biaketon thought it fit and proper for his wife to go and receive her aunt, so he sent a small family delegation. Ayabowei was in the team. “My father said we should go and welcome her back home. My mother was upfront, her daughter was at the back, and I was in the middle of the canoe,” he recalled.
The river was calm that day, as the trio pulled the canoe through the clement waters, paddling to the rhythm of popular village songs. The mangrove trees swayed gently in the wind, birds chirped among the branches, and the hoot of monkeys could be heard in the sultry quiet of the day. The creek branched off to Otuokede and Isueni, then on to Ekeni further down the estuary. Ahead, they heard the sound of male voices coming towards them, the plop of paddles in the river growing with the swift slide of the canoe on the surface of the water. Soon, the bow of the canoe came into view.
A team of young men were talking excitedly, but when they saw the woman and her children in the on-coming canoe, they slowed down to get their bearings right. One young man asked the question on his mind.
“Are you coming from Otuan?”
Okpan, the daughter of Seyei, wife of Jeremiah Ayabowei, had heard all kinds of stories in the past. She had to be circumspect, especially on the high seas. She placed her paddle on her lap, and asked in return:
“Anything?”
“Do you know one Clinton Ayabowei?”
“Yes. Anything?”
One could not be sure of the ways of the world. How did these men get to know the name of her son, and what could they want with him?
“He is our new teacher in Ekeni, so we are going to get him.”
Clinton was excited to hear his name from the mouth of complete strangers. So elated was he at the good news that he promptly stood to his full height in the middle of the canoe, and gladly identified himself. The response from the errand boys was quick with surprise when they saw him. Every one of them exclaimed in turn.
“Amo! Deinbo mo! He is just too small.”
They were all bigger than the new teacher, if indeed this was the new teacher they were going for. Ayabowei readily transferred himself into their canoe and became a big man sitting on a bar of the vessel without a paddle in hand. With a sense of triumph and accomplishment, the emissaries pulled their canoe with renewed strength into Otuan.
The news went round the town in quick time. From mouth to mouth, word spread swiftly that Ayabowei was now a teacher. Anyone who heard the story said he was too small to be a teacher. How was that possible? Some neighbours tried to dissuade Jeremiah Ayabowei not to let his son go, especially because he was posted to Ekeni, a long way from Otuan, almost on the fringes of the Atlantic Ocean. The distance was just too far. It was like going to the other end of the earth. EvenAyabowei’s classmates in primary school discouraged him. The young teenager thought so deeply about the matter that he even wept.
In the end, Jeremiah Biaketon Ayabowei made up his mind. He would let the boy go. How else would he grow to become a man in his own right, if he didn’t embark on the adventure? Ayabowei’s younger brother, Donwell, would accompany him on the trip. In those days, the dress code for teachers was a short-sleeve shirt over a pair of shorts. Ayabowei had no shirt to call his own. Neither did he have knickers. His older cousins, sons of his father’s elder brother, came to the rescue. Three of them rummaged through their portmanteaux, and came up with shirts and a pair of knickers each. But they were all bigger boys, so Ayabowei had to take the clothes to a tailor for him to adjust them to fit.
In the meantime, Okpan was restless. Her son, the sickly one, was going far away from her for the first time. How would he cope? Who would be there to take care of him, if he fell sick as he so often did? Who would cook for him and keep him company? She would do her best to fortify him for the journey. She gathered bunches of plantain and tied up cocoyam in baskets. Everything he needed to start a new life, she was prepared to give him. He would need oil, and he would need ogbono and egusi and pepper. What else? He would also need crayfish.
Her husband, though he did not say much, was even more concerned. Jeremiah Ayabowei went out of his way to buy about twenty tubers of Hausa yam. The boy should not suffer for any reason. He should not lack what to eat. Salt water areas had no farms. He set aside the biggest fish from his daily haulage, and dried them in readiness for the trip. When at last, it was time for his son to embark on the journey, the doting father parted with his most costly wrapper for the boy to cover himself from the cold at night.
