In a small compound in Abeokuta, where the generator’s noise was louder than laughter and the price of food rose faster than hope, lived a man called Baba Tunde.

Nigeria was not smiling those days. Fuel prices climbed like stubborn vines. Electricity came like a visitor who did not like to stay. Rice became almost a luxury. People spoke about “the economy” the way they spoke about the weather harsh, unpredictable, and beyond control.

But Baba Tunde still believed in tomorrow.

He had no children of his own. Life had written that chapter and closed it early. Yet his house was never empty. He took in children from the village, from broken homes, from streets where dreams die before sunrise. Some were distant relatives. Some were simply children with nowhere else to go.

“They are not my blood,” he would say, “but they are my responsibility.”

He was a retired civil servant. His pension came late sometimes months late and when it came, it arrived thin, like a malnourished promise. Still, he stretched it. He sold his small piece of land in the village to send one boy to university. He borrowed money at terrible interest to pay another’s school fees when tuition increased again.

“In this country,” he would tell them, “education is the only visa you don’t need an embassy for.”

They studied hard. They endured ASUU strikes. They read with candlelight when power failed. They queued for fuel. They complained about the government, about inflation, about the future.

But they graduated.

One became a tech worker and relocated to London. Another found nursing work in Canada. One joined politics, speaking big grammar about reform and change. They posted pictures on social media winter jackets, clean roads, steady light.

“God did it,” their captions read.

Baba Tunde remained in his compound in Abeokuta where “God did it” still needed generator fuel.

The country grew harder. Transport fares doubled. Hospital bills tripled. His pension stopped coming completely. He queued under the sun at government offices, only to be told, “Come back next week.” Next week became next month.

He fell sick during the rainy season. Malaria at first. Then complications. The hospital demanded payment before treatment. Medicine prices had risen again. Everything had risen except his strength.

He called the children he raised.

They answered with love in their voices but distance in their actions.

“Daddy, things are tight here too.”
“I just paid rent.”
“I will send something soon.”

Soon is a beautiful word. It shines. It comforts. But it rarely arrives on time.

Days passed. His neighbors contributed small money. A woman who sold akara nearby cooked for him. Strangers became family. Family became voices on the phone.

One evening, as rain beat the rusty roof like impatient fingers, Baba Tunde lay on his thin mattress. The generator next door coughed and died. Darkness wrapped the room like a tired blanket.

He whispered, “At least they escaped this struggle.”

There was pride in his voice  and something heavier than pride.

He died before help came.

When the news reached abroad, dollars moved faster than compassion ever had. They sent money for a grand burial. A new casket. A printed banner with his smiling face and bold words:

“A GREAT PATRIOT AND FATHER OF MANY.”

Politicians came and spoke about sacrifice. Neighbors shook their heads. The same country that drained him praised him after draining him.

His grave stood solid in the village soil. Solid, unlike the system he had served all his life.

In the end, Baba Tunde was like Nigeria itself giving more than it receives, surviving on hope, raising giants while shrinking quietly.

He built futures in a nation that could not build security for him.

And somewhere beyond the noise of generators and empty promises, his story became a question hanging in the humid air:

In a country fighting to stand, who carries the man who carried everyone?