My Father ...

Greetings. As we celebrate father's day this year, I share below quotes of some famous people talking about their fathers.

Isaiah Okafo Achebe

The most powerful memories of my father are the ones of him working as a catechist and teacher. He read constantly and had a small library. My father also had a number of collages and maps hanging on the walls, and books that he encouraged his children to read. He would often walk us through the house telling stories linked to each prized possession. It was from him that I was exposed to the magic in the mere title of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and to an Igbo translation of John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress.

Education was so important to my father that he often would sponsor a bright child from an underprivileged background, reminding us that he too, as an orphan, had received providence's benefaction.

My father's great gift to me was his love of education and his recognition that whether we look at one human family or we look at human society in general, growth can come only incrementally. 

As described by Chinua Achebe, in There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra

Sir Daudi Chwa

My father was very fond of his children. He could probably have told how many of us there were at any given moment and he might have been able to ascribe names accurately, though I think ages would have been beyond him. But I do not remember ever playing a game with him. Like everyone else, we would kneel to him and not sit on a chair in his presence unless expressly given permission. I went to boarding school when I was five and spent the holidays staying with various chiefs, with perhaps only a few days at the palace in between. My father was a very large man and a King, and we were in great awe.

As described by Sir Edward Mutesa II in Desecration of My Kingdom

Jahmale Carney Johnson

Outside work my father was a worldly man who spent much of his personal time away from the family and out on the town. He was goodlooking and quite stylish, full of vigor and vim, and he had many, many friends. He also chased women with great enthusiasm and energy.

It was important to my father that we children remain connected to our indigenous roots, and for this I am grateful, because it might so easily have been otherwise. My father might have sought to disappear into the elite settler class, which had, on the surface, accepted him, taking upon himself the settlers’ disdain for country people and tribal languages. He might have played the city life and embraced Americo-Liberian hegemony. He might have taken the hand of my mother — who was very fair and did not much look like an African anyway — and together they might have simply walked away from their rural backgrounds. Many did. My parents did not.

As described by Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, in This Child Will Be Great

Ras Makonnen Wolde Mikael

Apart from the great service he has rendered as a military leader and as an envoy of goodwill who has secured many friends for Our country, His Highness Ras Makonnen was a kind and sympathetic administrator and a great lover of truth and justice. He paid particular attention to Us from childhood so that this love of truth and justice has been instilled in Our mind, an element which has been a fountain of inspiration for Our own self-discipline and for leading Our people towards their destiny, thus permitting the memory of his priceless service to remain perpetually vivid. 

His Highness Ras Makonnen, besides taking the keenest interest in Our education in Ethiopian literature and other exotic disciplines, showed signal farsightedness in the educational field and sent a number of Ethiopian youth abroad for higher education.

As described by Haile Selassie, in Selected Speeches of His Imperial Majesty

Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa 

My father was a tall, dark-skinned man with a straight and stately posture, which I like to think I inherited. He had a tuft of white hair just above his forehead, and as a boy, I would take white ash and rub it into my hair in imitation of him. My father had a stern manner and did not spare the rod when disciplining his children. He could be exceedingly stubborn, another trait that may unfortunately have been passed down from father to son.

He was an acknowledged custodian of Xhosa history, and it was partially for that reason that he was valued as an adviser. My own interest in history had early roots and was encouraged by my father. Although my father could neither read nor write, he was reputed to be an excellent orator who captivated his audiences by entertaining them as well as teaching them.

My father, and a few other influential chiefs, had the great respect for education that is often present in those who are uneducated.

As described by Nelson R. Mandela, in Long Walk to Freedom