NIGERIANS AGE MATHEMATICS

A friend told me his grandfather died at 145. Okay, let’s play along and do the math.

The man’s firstborn is 58. The mother of that firstborn is alive and 72. The grandfather had 23 children with three wives.

So, if the firstborn is 58, and the grandfather was 145…

That means he was 87 years old when he had his first child. He then went on to have 22 more children after 87.

Now, the mother of that firstborn was 72 – 58 = 14 years old when she gave birth.

Think about that, an 87-year-old man, in the early 1960s, having his first child with a 14-year-old, then proceeding to have over 20 more children in his 90s and beyond. Someone born in an era in 18 century and early 1900 when people married at 16 or 17 What exactly was he waiting for his whole life until 87.

This isn’t just unlikely. It’s biologically and historically improbable to the point of impossibility.

What’s even more striking. We have someone like President Olusegun Obasanjo, a soldier, general, military head of state, and two-term civilian president, a man who has traveled the world with every resource at his disposal openly saying he does not know his actual age.

But you, from a village without steady electricity, claim to know your grandparents exact birth year in the 1800s. Yet you sometimes have to call relatives to confirm your own age.

The world record for the longest verified human life is 122 years. Japan, with its meticulous records and healthcare, hasn’t documented anyone past 120. So how did we, without such record-keeping, arrive at 145 or, as I’ve sometimes heard in the South-South, even 160 years.

My point is simple, let’s apply sense. Before we quote legendary ages, let’s use the clues we have, the ages of children, the likely age at marriage, the wife’s age. Do the simple math. It will give you a far more realistic number than pulling figures from the sky.

Yes, our elders lived long. But let’s honour them with truth, not tall tales. A credible legacy is more powerful than a miraculous myth.

Until the moment when will shall dance in white Greater Grace 

Oyugbo JONAH Osagie 

#DoTheMath