-By Abdul Mahmud
A few days ago, specifically on Thursday, 21st August, 2025, Mrs. Deki Agbahovbe turned seventy-nine. She was my teacher. She taught me Literature-in-English at the Federal School of Arts and Science, Ondo, Ondo State, in the mid-1980s. But she was far more than a teacher to me. She became a mother, a guardian, a compass. I still see her in the classroom. Firm. Disciplined. Sharp-witted. Her voice steady, her eyes alert. She had no patience for sluggish thinking. You had to be quick on your feet. You had to listen, to think, to respond. Literature, for her, was not just about books. It was about life, about human choices, about clarity. She made us wrestle with texts until the words yielded their truths. She would scold us with precision. Everyone had a nickname, which elicited from those hiding their faces from her darting eyes between the pages of their notebooks. The nicknames weren’t meant to wound, but to awaken to one’s failing. She wanted us to think. She wanted us to know that words carried weight, that language was power. That was her gift to us. She made us better readers, and by extension, better human beings.
But my story with her began outside the classroom.
When I arrived in Ondo to begin my Advanced Level, the admission process had long closed. I came late. The admission window was already shut. It was her husband, Pa Agbahovbe, now late, who helped secure my place, on seeing my WAEC result. “I won’t let this slip. Not with your top grades”, he said. Bless his soul. My mother, relieved that I had not lost the opportunity, later entrusted me to Mrs. Agbahovbe, leaving what was a paltry sum at the time with her and for my care.. She became my loco parentis. It was not a title she carried lightly. She stepped into the role of mother with the same seriousness she brought into teaching. In her, I saw the vigilance each time I wanted to buy something. She would scrutinise my request. Was it necessary? Was it useful? Would my mother have approved? There was no room for waste. No space for frivolity. She wanted me to grow with discipline and purpose. She guarded me like one of her own. From there on, I didn’t miss my biological mum who had assumed both the fathering and mothering roles over me and my other six siblings after our dad suddenly passed on a year and half earlier. She guarded the money my mother left in her care as though it were her own. She watched over me as if I had been born from her womb. I called her mummy. She was mum really. Not in the ordinary sense of affection. But, in the true, living sense of mothering. The name was natural. She earned it, not by indulgence, but by discipline, by care, by the quiet insistence that life must not be wasted. Looking back now, I realise how formative those years were. To be young, away from home, with the temptations and freedoms of student life, and yet to have someone watching, guiding, restraining – it was a blessing, indeed. She did not smother me. But, she would scold. Typical of Bendel mothers. She did not overprotect me. But, she would set boundaries with her eyes, the way mothers do. I feared walking into her path or going to the staff room. But she gave me a structure, a fence within which I could grow. That, perhaps, is the highest form of mothering.
Seventy-nine is not just a number. It is a testament. It is the story of a life given to shaping others. A life that chose the classroom as its altar, and young minds as its offering. For how do we measure the worth of a teacher? By the books covered in a syllabus? By the marks on an exam sheet? Or by the human beings who rise, decades later, to say: “She taught me. She shaped me. She mothered me”. Teachers like Mrs. Agbahovbe live in the lives of their students. We carry them forward.
We hear their voices in our own speeches. We remember their warnings when we are tempted to stray. We recall their encouragement when we are tempted to give up. Her sharp wit still echoes in me. Her firm discipline still steadies me. And her care, her quiet, and watchful care still warm me. At seventy-nine, I honour her. But more than honour, I thank her. I thank her for the discipline that never allowed waste. I thank her for the firmness that sharpened my mind. I thank her for carving in me the love for literature and letters. I thank her as a mum who kept watch, who cared enough to say no, who shaped me in ways only time can fully reveal. I thank her and Pa Agbahovbe for the humanity that saw a young boy, late for admission, and chose not to let him fall by the wayside.
We live in a world that often forgets teachers. We celebrate politicians, businessmen, celebrities. But teachers? They fade into the background. Yet they are the ones who make all the others possible. Without a teacher, no leader rises. Without a teacher, no thinker emerges. Without a teacher, the world has no compass. Mrs. Agbahovbe belongs to that quiet army of nation-builders. They work in classrooms with little recognition. They labour over students, planting seeds they may never live to see bloom. They shape destinies quietly, one mind at a time. But beyond being a retired teacher, she remains a mother. And this is where I must insist: the mothering of others is one of the noblest acts of humanity. She did not choose me. I was handed to her. Yet she embraced me, guarded me, disciplined me, and guided me. That act alone speaks volumes of her heart.
Seventy-nine years is a long journey. It carries laughter, tears, struggles, triumphs. It carries the memory of her late husband, who once opened the door of opportunity for me. It carries the many students who passed through her hands, each with a story to tell. It carries the weight of decades of giving, of caring, of standing firm in the classroom and at home. But seventy-nine also carries light. It carries the glow of legacy. For a teacher’s true legacy is not in her own years, but in the years of her students. Every life she touched carries her forward. Every success her students achieve echoes back to her. Every grateful memory, like this one, keeps her alive in ways age cannot diminish. Whenever I read her posts on Facebook and look at her photos, I see a woman of balance. This is in spite of the vagaries of life, of changing seasons and changing circumstances. She hasn’t changed. She is still stern, stubborn to upholding truths in her posts. She is still demanding accountability, this time from the band’s of looters that continue to ruin our country. She still shows care, with light the dominant motif of her posts. Above all, she is still the mother I knew almost forty years who celebrates every landmark in the life of her biological children and her many online children. That balance is rare. It is what makes her unforgettable. As she walks slowly into her eightieth year, I pray strength for her. I pray joy for her. I pray that she knows, deep within her, how much she is loved and remembered. For memory is a form of honour, and gratitude is a form of prayer.
Mummy at seventy-nine. That is what she remains to me. A mother in the classroom. The forever teacher. A guardian of discipline. A keeper of care. We, her students, are her testimony. We carry her name not in titles or accolades, but in the quiet ways we live our lives. Every time I resist waste, I hear her. Every time I choose discipline over indulgence, I see her. Every time I read a text with care, I remember her. That is how teachers live forever. Not in boastful gestures or grand claims, but in the subtle ways they leave their marks on the world. They live in the lessons that echo in our minds long after the bell has rung, in the wisdom we carry when we face moments of doubts, and in the values that guide our decisions. Every act of kindness, every choice rooted in integrity, every word spoken with care are the true living testaments to their influence. Like the living oracles.
Teachers endure because they become part of the lives they touch. They are woven into our successes and failures, our laughter and our grief, our quiet moments of reflection and our boldest leaps forward. When we act with courage, patience, or generosity, we do so in the shadow of those who taught us how. In this way, they never truly leave us; they continue to shape the world through the people they have nurtured, loved, and believed in.
Last week on Facebook, as you turned seventy-nine, I bowed and paused to say thank you, Mummy. For the firmness that shaped us, for the discipline that steadied us, for the care that healed our wounds, and for the humanity that shone through every gesture of your life. Yours was never the loud voice of power, but the quiet insistence of love and principle, teaching us that strength does not need to raise itself above others to be felt. The world may not carry your name on its billboards, or in its histories, or on streets’ signposts; but I do. And I will never forget.
Happy birthday, Mummy Deki Agbahovbe. May the days ahead be kind to you, and may the memories of the countless students whose lives you touched wrap around you like a shawl. At seventy-nine, you remind us that teachers are custodians of memory and guardians of futures yet unseen. For you are, and will always remain, our Mummy.
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