My father’s first child was a girl. He said she was a loud squalling baby who grasped his finger with surprising strength, and he knew it meant she would be tough. But she died at the age of four months. The second, a boy, was not yet four months old before he died. Some people from my father’s family said my mother was a witch, eating her children, trading their innocent hearts in exchange for her own long life. But, at that time, other babies in our village in Edo were dying too. They got sick with watery shit and weak eyes. Some people said the diarrhea was punishment from God. The Christians prayed in church. The Muslims prayed at the mosque. The old people performed sacrifices. Still, babies died, and their tiny still bodies were wrapped in cloth and buried, and it seemed senseless that they had even been born at all.

It was 1985. My father was working as a driver at the Ministry of Health. He was in the general pool, a lowly position. One day, he picked up a visiting dignitary from the airport, dropped him at his hotel, and then discovered, lodged in the back seat of the car, a thick envelope of cash that had slid out of the man’s bag. He returned it immediately. The man was so pleased — and surprised—that he told the new Minister of Health about it. Two days later, the new Minister asked for my father. “I want you to be my driver,” The Minister said. “I value honesty.”

The Minister’s name was Dr. Olikoye Ransome-Kuti. He had big sleepy eyes and seemed to come from another time in the past when old-fashioned integrity was easy. His simplicity surprised my father. He was not interested in the usual carousing of the powerful, no late nights and drinking and trysts, and my father did not have to guard any secrets for him. He ate breakfast with his family every morning, and took walks with his wife in the evening, and played tennis with his children on weekends. He listened attentively, those half-closed eyes so intent that my father, at first, felt uncomfortable when they were trained on him.

The Minister asked my father about his family, and my father told him everyone was fine. The Minister asked how many children he had, and my father said none yet, but that his wife was pregnant and due in a few weeks. (My mother was pregnant with me.) Then the minister asked a question that startled my father. “How many of your children have died?”

My father stuttered and said, “Two, sir, but we are praying that it will not happen again.” The Minister told him it was good to pray, but there was something else he had to do. “Our children are dying of simple illnesses and that must stop. I want you to take me to your village. I have started a program in Lagos but I want to start others in different parts of the country. We will go to your village next week.” It took my heavy-tongued father a while to find his voice and say, “Yes sir.”