THE STORY
1) THE NAME WE COULDN’T WASH OFF
My name is Adaku.
I was eight the day our surname became a stain.
It happened on a construction site in Onitsha where my father, Nnanna, worked as a mason. By noon, a pallet of cement went missing. By evening, a rumor found a mouth. By night, the supervisor’s finger found my father’s chest.
“You were the last to leave the store, abi?”
He wasn’t. But poverty is a loud witness; it makes innocent men look guilty.
They didn’t take him to court. They didn’t even let him speak. They just told him not to come back, not tomorrow, not ever. And that was how the word thief was stitched to our name with thread we couldn’t cut.
2) WHEN STOMACHS ARGUE WITH DIGNITY
We moved from a room to a corner of a room.
Mother started frying akara at the junction near Ose Okwodu market.
I balanced a basin on my head and sold to bus conductors, drivers, and tired traders with dusty slippers.
Some people bought and smiled. Others bought and pointed.
“Akara of a thief’s daughter.”
Mother would squeeze my shoulder softly. “Nwanyi oma, the mouth that calls you names will one day call you Barrister.”
At night Father stared at his hands like they betrayed him. He would scrub his palms with soap, then ash, then lather again, as if truth could be washed into the lines.
3) A TEACHER’S SENTENCE
At school, I passed every test like my life depended on it—because it did.
But on prize-giving day, when I climbed the stage for Overall Best, a teacher whispered into the mic, thinking it wasn’t on:
“Even criminals can birth brilliant children.”
The hall laughed, then quietness fell like harmattan dust when the headmistress frowned.
I felt something rise in me, hot and stubborn. Not tears—hunger. A hunger for a day when my surname would taste like respect on every tongue.
4) SALT, OIL, AND A STRANGER
One evening, while helping Mother, a man in a worn suit stopped at our stand. He bought ₦200 akara and asked for extra pepper. Then he stood there, eating slowly, watching the traffic like it owed him an apology.
“You scoop evenly,” he said to Mother. “No bias. Every ball has its share.”
Mother smiled. “Life should be like that. But life is not frying pan.”
The stranger laughed. “True. My name is Barrister Umeh. I live two streets away.”
He looked at me. “What’s your name?”
“Adaku.”
“What do you want to become?”
I inhaled smoke and hot oil. “A lawyer that doesn’t fear rich people.”
The man’s eyes warmed. He returned the next day, and the next. He started buying akara in bulk for his office. One Saturday, he brought old law books tied with blue rope.
“For Adaku.”
That night I slept with Criminal Procedure under my pillow, as if sections of law could leak into my dreams.
5) WAEC, JAMB, AND WHISPERS
I wrote WAEC with borrowed textbooks and a timetable pinned to our zinc wall.
When the results came out, I passed all.
“Akara don’t fry brain,” Mother teased.
Then came JAMB. I scored well.
Admission letter arrived from UNN to study Law, and joy jumped around our room like a new goat. But the word fees stood at the doorway with folded arms.
Barrister Umeh cleared his throat. “I have a small foundation. It isn’t much, but if Adaku promises to finish, I will help.”
Mother’s lips trembled. “Promise? She will sign it with her blood.”
“Please don’t involve blood,” he said softly. “Only discipline.”
6) THE CAMPUS THAT ATE AND TAUGHT ME
Nsukka smelled like wet grass and hot dreams.
I worked as a typist in the evening, proofread projects for science students at night, and woke by four to read.
Some days I cried into my pillow, silently, so my roommates wouldn’t hear. Not because of poverty—that was my old neighbor—but because of anger. Anger that we never got to defend ourselves. Anger that truth had no microphone the day Father was accused.
On days anger wanted to swallow me, I remembered Mother’s voice:
“Dignity is a wrapper. Tie it well; do not borrow anyone’s own.”
7) THE LETTER THAT SMELLED LIKE RAIN
In 400 level, a letter from home came with a smell of rain and smoked fish.
“Father is sick,” Mother wrote simply. “He hardly sleeps. The cough is deep.”
I traveled home. He had grown thinner, but the light in his eyes still stood upright. We sat on a wooden bench while Eke market hummed outside.
He said, “Ada m, I can die knowing you will carry this family name like a clean plate.”
“Papa, you won’t die. You will watch me wear my wig.”
“Wig?” He chuckled. “And gown. Don’t forget the gown.”
We laughed, and the room stopped being small.
😎 CALLED TO BAR
The day I was Called to Bar, I held my certificate like a sword and a shield.
Photos, hugs, sweaty joy.
Mother squeezed my fingers and whispered, “From thief’s daughter to Barrister Adaku Nnanna. God is a writer; his pen has stubborn ink.”
I went back to Onitsha wearing my black suit in the sun. Some neighbors pretended not to notice. Others smiled and said well done like it was expensive.
Father sat on our stool, back straighter than his spine.
“When will you open chamber?”
“Soon,” I said. “But first, I will open a file.”
9) THE FILE NOBODY WANTED
I started with questions. What happened to the missing cement? Where was the storekeeper’s logbook? Why hadn’t anyone filed a formal complaint back then?
People rolled eyes.
“Old story.”
“Let sleeping dogs rest.”
But I had slept with dogs of shame my whole life. Enough.
I found the site engineer—now a contractor in Awka. He remembered everything, including how the supervisor, Oba, had insisted my father be dismissed quickly “to set an example.”
“Example?” I asked.
“Workers were grumbling. We needed to look strong.”
“So you chose a poor man to be strong on.”
He sighed. “File your case, counsel. If the court invites me, I will come.”
10) THE WITNESS WITH A SCAR
After three months of knocking on doors, a man with a scar over his eyebrow finally opened his mouth. His name was Ifeanyi—a former security guard at the site.
“I was on night duty the day before the cement ‘disappeared’,” he said. “A truck came late. The supervisor signed off a partial release without the storekeeper. He said it was urgent for another site. Next day, he shouted theft.”
“Do you have anything to prove it?”
He nodded toward an old bag. Inside lay a torn carbon copy of a movement log—faded, but readable. The signature wasn’t my father’s. It was Oba’s.
My fingers trembled as I slid the paper into a clear file. The past had finally produced a face.
11) FILING SUIT
I filed an action for wrongful termination, defamation, and loss of earnings against the company and the former supervisor. People said I was mad to drag big men to court.
“Let it go,” they warned.
But if we let shame grow old, it starts asking for grandchildren.
The company came with three lawyers. I came with truth and a mother who never stopped praying under her breath.
12) COURTROOM HEAT
The courtroom smelled of old books and new sweat.
When Oba entered with his lawyers, he didn’t look at us. He adjusted his tie like innocence was silk.
I called Ifeanyi. He spoke with the carefulness of a man who knows fear by name. He presented the carbon copy. He pointed to signatures. He told the court about the late-night truck and the rushed dismissal.
Under cross-examination, the company’s lawyer tried to break him.
“Did you see money exchange hands?”
“No.”
“Then you are assuming.”
“I am telling you what I recorded. If your client is innocent, why did he ignore the storekeeper and night log?”
Murmurs. A gavel. Silence returned.
13) THE MAN IN THE BACK ROW
On the second hearing, a man sat in the back row, hat pulled low. He left before we finished.
On the third hearing, he returned and waited outside the court afterward.
He approached us quietly. “Counsel, I was the driver of that truck. I thought the matter died long ago.”
My breath paused. “Will you testify?”
He frowned. “I have children now.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Do you want them to learn that silence is safer than truth?”
He swallowed. “I will come.”
His testimony stitched the final thread. He confirmed the late-night pickup authorized by Oba, the cash counted in a brown envelope, and the instruction to “keep this between us.”
14) THE DAY TRUTH STOOD
Judgment day.
The judge adjusted his glasses and read, voice steady, words heavy.
He found the termination wrongful, the accusation unsubstantiated, the process malicious.
He awarded damages to my father and ordered a written apology from the company to be published in two national dailies within fourteen days.
Mother’s hand found mine and shook like laughter escaping a cage.
Father, who had not stood straight in years, rose to his full height. Tears refused to be dignified; they ran.
As we stepped out, the sun felt like a blessing that had been late but still arrived in full.
15) WHEN A NAME IS WASHED
The company’s apology appeared exactly fourteen days later. Neighbors brought copies folded carefully, as if paper could be holy.
Those who once whispered now spoke loudly:
“Barrister, eh! We knew your father was innocent.”
But we remembered faces. Forgiveness doesn’t erase memory; it rearranges it.
With part of the damages, Father opened a small block molding business. The first blocks he made were used to repair the church wall that had cracked during the rainy season. “I will build where rumor broke,” he said.
16) SATURDAY JUSTICE
I started Saturday Justice Clinic under a mango tree beside our compound—free legal advice for market women, keke riders, and casual workers. Sometimes we solved disputes with a handshake. Sometimes I wrote letters that shook stubborn doors open.
One afternoon, a young mason came, eyes red. His daily pay had been seized because a wheelbarrow went missing on his shift.
“How much is the wheelbarrow?” I asked.
“₦35,000.”
“And your pay?”
“₦3,500.”
“So they want ten days of your life for one wheelbarrow.”
He nodded.
We wrote a letter, quoted labour laws, and demanded fairness. Two days later, the balance of his pay found its way back into his hands.
He cried. I remembered eight-year-old me and whispered inside, We are washing names today.
17) A KNOCK AT DUSK
One evening, as the sky pinked and the scent of frying plantain floated through the street, someone knocked.
It was Oba.
Age had thinned him. Pride had not.
“I came to apologize,” he said without swallowing. “The court ordered me to write, and I did. But I must say it too. I thought I was protecting the company. I did wrong.”
Father stared at him a long time, then stepped aside. “Come in,” he said. “Sit. Eat.”
We shared food. Forgiveness doesn’t always sound like words; sometimes it tastes like stew.
When he left, Father looked at me. “Barrister, you have given me back my sleep.”
I replied, half-teasing, half-serious, “Papa, it was a joint venture—your truth, Mama’s prayers, my stubbornness, and God’s timing.”
18) THE DAY WE DANCED WITHOUT MUSIC
On the anniversary of the judgment, our street gathered. No band. No canopies. Just neighbors, bowls of jollof, and a radio playing old highlife.
Mother tied a new George wrapper. Father wore a cap that made him look like the storybooks’ chiefs.
Someone shouted, “Dance, Papa Barrister!”
He did, with slow steps. The kind of dance men do when their backs stop carrying shame and start carrying air.
19) WHAT I LEARNED HOLDING OTHER PEOPLE’S STORIES
Since then, I have carried many . ……
