Some stories become family legends—not because they are true in every detail, but because they are too good not to be retold.
Growing up in Bacita, near the River Niger, I saw my father travel constantly between our home and Lagos. As Chief Accountant and Company Secretary, he seemed to spend as much time on the road as he did in the office. Acquisitions, shareholder meetings, board meetings—you name it, he was there. In those days, despite the occasional danger, people routinely drove through the night. The journey took five or six hours, depending on the roads and how many relatives, friends, or roadside food stalls tempted him to stop. If I happened to be at secondary school in Offa, he might decide on a whim to branch off and see me.
He never travelled alone. One of his favourite drivers was a cheerful fellow called Abiodun. Spend that many hours together on Nigeria's roads, and your driver soon becomes more than an employee. They became family—our unofficial uncles and older brothers—dispensing advice, gossip, and the occasional lecture.
Then came the trip that changed everything.
During an armed robbery in Lagos, my father was dragged out of the car while Abiodun was shot in the stomach. In the confusion, Abiodun never actually saw what happened to my father. Meanwhile, my father, thinking only of his injured driver, somehow managed to carry him through the streets at night until they reached help. Thanks to some nursing friends my father still knew from earlier in his life, emergency surgery and blood transfusions were arranged, and Abiodun survived.
When my father eventually returned home, we were simply relieved to see him alive.
The drivers, however, had reached a rather different conclusion.
According to Abiodun, one moment my father had been sitting beside him... and the next, he had vanished without a trace.
There was only one logical explanation.
He had turned into a cat.
The rumour spread remarkably quickly among the company's drivers. Suddenly, volunteering to drive my father became less attractive than wrestling a crocodile. Abiodun's wife repeatedly begged him never to drive "that man" again. Other drivers politely found reasons to be unavailable whenever my father's name appeared on the schedule.
My father, possessing an exceptionally mischievous sense of humour, did absolutely nothing to discourage the story.
If anything, he encouraged it.
One day, someone abandoned an object on company property that everyone agreed was unmistakably juju. Workers stood at a respectful distance, each waiting for someone else to deal with it. My father arrived, looked at the mysterious object, casually picked it up, slipped it into his pocket, smiled, and simply said, "Carry on."
The workers carried on.
The legend, meanwhile, grew considerably.
Eventually, another driver, James, agreed to take on the assignment—but only during daylight hours. Since it was safer, and apparently, whatever supernatural powers my father possessed were considered far less active before sunset.
To this day, I still smile whenever I remember it. My father never claimed to possess magical powers. He simply understood that once people have made up their minds, a little humour can be far more entertaining than a serious denial. And somewhere in Nigeria, I suspect there are still people who are not entirely convinced that he couldn't turn into a cat.
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