That man may not have had the biggest buildings in the village but he changed the lives of his people. What legacy am I leaving behind? What mentorship trail do I portray? Who are my successors? I may be financially independent but how many other people are also financially independent on my account? I was deeply intrigued and challenged, first for myself. I’ve always been impressed by the entrepreneurship mentorship model amongst the Igbo but today’s instance completely blew my mind away. They were full of praise for that one man who started it all the man who though long dead, left a legacy which may not be the fanciest of jobs but has changed the economic fortunes of his people forever. As I sat there in admiration while putting finishing touches to the child’s admission notes, they both bragged that their village produced the best morticians in Nigeria and that their kinsmen were highly sought after across the country because of the unique quality of their craft. A woman who looked so uncomfortable and stranded a moment earlier, suddenly felt at home. After a few questions back and forth in their local dialect, boooom!… this madam and our mortician were like they had known each other for years. By this time, ‘last doctor’ was already here, I had sent for him earlier. She explained further that those trained, over the years, also trained others and so on and so forth, resulting in a mentorship cascade that has produced thousands of morticians across the country. And in her habit of interrupting me, just as I opened my mouth to ask how it was so, she continued, “There was a certain man from my village, somewhere around 9th mile in Enugu state, who went abroad and after many years of working as a mortician, returned to train a handful of our young men in his trade.” I think she noticed my bewilderment, so she explained saying a vast majority of morticians in Benue State were from her village so there was a high chance of ours being her brother.

What did that mean? Earlier, I was surprised but now I was surprised and confused at the same time. “Well, I don’t know him but he will be my brother”, she replied. Why in the world would a woman with a very sick child, sitting before a lifesaving doctor, ask to see the person whose job is to prepare dead people to be buried? “Do you know ‘last doctor’ ?” I asked using the more popular name our mortician was known with.

Apostilas medcurso 2015