Written June 17, 2012
Bismillaahir-Rahmaanir-Raheem
I remember as a kid that there was a wine-tapper in our house back in our village in Ondo. My grandpa whom I had been staying with early 1984 did not see anything wrong in having a wine-tapper as a tenant. It was a gross oversight on his part. May Allaah forgive Pa Amusa Oduola, my loving grandpa, who once vowed that he would ensure that I was educated to the highest level in life. That informed my getting enrolled in a boarding school for my secondary school education in 1989. My grandfather died the following year in the famous Adeyalo Hospital, Ondo. He died a Muslim, alhamdulillah.
Yes the wine-tapper. He was a naughty man from Isoko in the old Bendel State. We used to call him Baba Ooti. Ooti, shortened from 'Rotimi,' was the first male son of the wine-tapper. Ooti! He used to beat a hell out of me for not calling him 'Booda Oti,' that is, Brother Ooti as a sign of respect for him.
Yes the wine-tapper. He used to send me on errands. Many errands. The most nauseating of the errands he would send me was me removing the grey hair on his head! I detested it, not because I knew it was wrong according to the Islamic standards (where was I from the Islamic learning?) but I just hated why I should pull another man's hair from his head.
Thus many a day I would dodge the man whenever he called me and I sensed it was 'Shaka! Come and remove my this thing' that he wanted from me. Anytime I fell a prey, I would relunctantly do it for him, and whenever I saw he was dozing I would quietly leave him and run away! I could remember one day when I attempted to forsake him, I had turned my back tip-toeing when suddenly he jerked me from the waistband and drew me back. 'Shuo! You want to run away again?!'
(The wine-tapper died a year after my grandpa died and there was no wine selling in our house until another wine-rapper, Fidelis, after some five years, rented another room in our other house, through an agent of a sort. When I came back from Kaduna with Islam - wa liLlaahil hamd - I fought tooth-and-nail to get him evicted and he was).
(From the memoirs of a Muslim kid).
