How a childhood mistake and a mother’s wisdom taught me the enduring values of honesty, integrity and self-respect.
I remember a hot, blistering day in 1975 in my mother’s tiny village of Oria-Abraka, in what is today Ethiope East Local Government Area of Delta State, Nigeria. I was about ten years old and in Primary One, spending my first-term school holidays with my mother, who had separated from my father when I was barely three months old.
I never knew the circumstances that led to the end of their marriage. I was the youngest of their six children—three boys and three girls—and, as I would learn later, my mother had left the marriage when I was still an infant. Perhaps the demands of a polygamous household, compounded by the challenges of life in a modest environment, had become too much to bear. Whatever the reasons, my mother became the central figure in my early understanding of life, character and right conduct.
I loved my holidays in the village for two reasons. First, there was the serenity of rural life and its closeness to nature. Second, having come from Sapele, I enjoyed a certain advantage over many of my village peers: I could speak English with relative fluency. At that age, I considered this something of a social asset.
Life in the village, however, came with responsibilities. Before I could go out to play, I had to complete my chores, which included fetching water from the River Ethiope, gathering firewood and cleaning the compound. Once these tasks were done, I was free to join the other boys.
Our favourite game was playing soldiers. Armed with rubber slings, we hunted lizards, which became our unfortunate targets. The number of lizards you killed determined your rank, and killing a red-necked male lizard earned you double promotion. By our standards, it was serious business.
At dusk, we would make our way home, stopping as usual to buy snacks—shelled groundnuts and a locally made bread we called akpu biscuit. Why it was given that name remains a mystery to me to this day.
I rarely had money of my own to buy these treats. Consequently, my friends would sometimes share their snacks with me. I had grown accustomed to this arrangement, perhaps without fully appreciating how the others felt about it.
Then came the day that changed everything.
One of the boys, Ochuko, decided that enough was enough. He questioned why the others should continually share their provisions with me when, in his view, I often ended up eating more than they did. He persuaded the other four boys to join him, and together they turned against me. They called me names, ridiculed me and refused to share anything with me.
For a ten-year-old boy, the rejection was painful. I felt humiliated and determined to prove that I was not what they thought I was. In my childish understanding, the solution was simple: if I could not afford the snacks, I would find the money somehow.
I hurried home. My mother was at the market. I searched the house, found some of her money and took three pence.
Then I returned to my friends with snacks of my own.
It worked. I regained their approval, and for that brief moment, I felt vindicated. But beneath the satisfaction was an uncomfortable awareness that I had done something wrong. I had stolen from my own mother.
It was the first time I had ever stolen anything.
That evening, my mother noticed the missing money. She asked whether I had taken the three pence. I denied it.
She knew I was lying. There were only two of us in the house, and she had good reason to suspect me. Yet she did not launch into an angry tirade or rush to punish me.
Instead, she waited until the following morning.
She woke me early, sat me down and began a conversation that has remained with me for more than half a century.
“Who am I to you?” she asked.
“You are my mother,” I replied.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you gave birth to me.”
She continued, “So, my blood flows in your veins?”
“Yes,” I answered.
By then, I began to understand where she was leading me.
She explained that we were bound together in a profound way. If her blood flowed in my veins, how could I steal from her? Why would I wrong someone whose life was so intimately connected to mine? And why would I compound the offence by lying about it?
Her words pierced through my childish excuses. I suddenly saw my actions for what they were—not merely a desperate attempt to win back my friends’ approval, but a betrayal of the trust between my mother and me.
Shame overwhelmed me. I confessed.
What happened next remains one of the most defining moments of my life.
My mother brought out the Holy Bible, opened it to Exodus chapter 20 and asked me to read the chapter aloud. When I reached verse 15, the commandment was unmistakable: “Thou shalt not steal.”
Those words, read in the presence of the woman I had wronged, struck me with a force I have never forgotten.
I knelt before her and made a solemn promise. If she would forgive me, I would never steal again for as long as I lived.
She forgave me.
And by the grace of God, I have kept that promise.
My mother passed on in 1996, but her influence has never left me. She remains one of the most important people in my life, and the lessons she taught me continue to shape the person I strive to be. May her gentle soul continue to rest in the bosom of the Lord, in Jesus’ name.
Looking back, I realise that my mother taught me far more than the commandment against stealing. She taught me that integrity is not merely about obeying rules when someone is watching. It is about developing an inner compass that guides our choices even when no one else knows what we have done.
She also taught me that a wrong action does not have to become a defining character trait. I had made a mistake, but she did not reduce me to that mistake. Instead, she gave me the opportunity to acknowledge my wrongdoing, seek forgiveness and make a commitment to do better.
That, to me, is the essence of effective moral instruction: confronting wrongdoing without destroying the person who has done wrong.
Her lesson has endured in my own home. If you were to ask my children what Daddy dislikes most, I am confident they would answer in unison: “Lies!”
I smile when I think of that response, because I know where it began—with a little boy, three pence, five disappointed playmates and a mother who understood that raising a child is about far more than providing food, shelter and education. It is also about shaping character.
In a world where dishonesty is sometimes excused as cleverness, where people may rationalise wrongdoing in the pursuit of acceptance or personal advantage, and where integrity can appear to come at a cost, my mother’s lesson remains as relevant as ever. Our circumstances may explain the pressures we face, but they do not automatically justify the choices we make.
I could have allowed the humiliation I felt that afternoon to justify my theft. Instead, my mother’s intervention helped me understand that another person’s rejection was no reason to abandon my values.
The three pence was a small sum. The lesson it purchased was priceless.
Today, I dedicate this piece to the memory of my beloved mother, whose wisdom, faith and quiet strength gave me a moral foundation that has endured long after her passing.
Thank you, Mama, for teaching me that integrity is not what we profess; it is what we practise. Your lesson lives on in me, in my children and, I pray, in the generations that will follow.
May your gentle soul continue to rest in perfect peace.