AGONY OF A MOTHER Buchi Emechata once wrote The joy of motherhood but my experience with mothers was the

agony of motherhood. It was during the festive period in Lagos, infact, a day before the Eldir Kabir, popularly called Ileya festival. I boarded a bus from Oshodi a popular area in Lagos west Nigeria to Agbado another suburb in Lagos. For the fact that it was a day before the festival, everywhere was clustered: people young and old, baggage etc, and to top it all, there was heavy traffic, a popular phenomenon in Lagos during festive period. I was in the bus thinking of when I will eventually get home in that heavy traffic when I heard the cry of a baby. Looking back, I noticed a lady with two babies on each hand. At first, I thought the lady sitting beside her was a relative so they should be able to manage the situation because the twins were barely two months old and were sweating profusely. When the cry did not cease, I looked closer, then I realized that the women with the twins was actually alone with a boy of about three years old all sitting on one passenger seat. At first, the woman thought she could actually manage the situation by stucking each of her breasts in their mouth. But when the cry intensified after much cajoling and not knowing what next to do, she burst into tears.

At this point, passengers in the bus were force to make comments. Why did you take these innocent babies that are not even old enough to go out on this kind of journey? this was the question on peoples lips. She couldnt say anything and still in tears, she was still beholding the sight of the little kids as they refuse to stop crying after much effort to give them comfort while at the same time attending the young boy sitting beside her. When the passengers beside her couldnt bear the sight of the crying twins, they were forced to take one of the twins so that she could give full attention to the other. With this act, the cry subdue and I was able to ask her how did you manage to leave home with your twins, a young boy and your baggage all alone on feet? She then answered in tears and said in her local dialect Yoruba I manage to convince my husband that we couldnt go all by ourselves to his family house but he was reluctant and said I should manage. What a father! You will say. But my question is, why bring these innocent souls to this world without making adequate provisions for their wellbeing? In another development, just right beside me in the same bus, I noticed a woman with two young girls. Obviously, they were also travelling for the Ileya festival. She was carrying one girl on her hand while she enlists the help of a young man sitting beside her to help carry the other because the children were sleeping. At the

same time, she was blowing air on the kids because the heat was unbearable in the heavy traffic. At a point, the child with the young man became uncomfortable and was sweating seriously. Before the mother could reach to the child to know whats wrong, the girl started vomiting right inside the bus all over the young man carrying her. At this moment, passengers in the bus beckoned on the driver to stop the bus so as to give adequate attention and ventilation to the troubled child. While this was going on, the mother of the child explained that they do not usually go on a trip with public buses and that the driver that was supposed to take them wasnt available. The girl was properly attended to and we continue our journey. At last, I alighted at my destination and I looked back into the bus and said to myself. Motherhood is an untold agony that every mother cannot escape from. One way or the other, you will experience it. Either through your sincere concern for your sick child, your outcry for a wayward child in the path of destruction, your working endlessly and tirelessly to see to your child welfare or the experience I just shared, you cannot escape from it. Mothers can only take solace with the thought that the child will grow up to be somebody and will not forget the agony they went through to bring them up. Just

as Abraham Lincoln former president of United States of America once said all that I am or ever hope to be I owe to any mother.