By Lanre Alfred
Chairman of Osmoserve Global and Seina Marine is 45 today . It was never easy being Scott Tommey. It is not easy still, to recount how he emerged through his daunting crucible to become a product of his dreams. Reading Scott’s story could be cathartic; it could cause you to believe again, in the romance and pliant realities of heartfelt dreams.
It is said that when you tell your dreams to yourself and reinforce it with will that toils like a steel forge, the universe makes them come true; reading Scott’s story, you could understand why or how he lived by this creed.
Lying on a bed of roses, Scott has felt the soft textured flower prick his hide like thorns. He has watched everything in his life go wrong. But like a lion with manes of unbending will, he lifted himself up amid rasping branches of tragedy and ill, to rewrite his story in the tenor of his heartfelt dreams.
Scott stirred on fluent haunches, to enact his life story as the first and only anecdote of the proverbial “Lion of Afia Nsit,” while nature bled in prelude to the tragedy of the fallen, most of whom were simply luckless or ill-equipped to survive in the daunting wilderness called “life.” Charging with the grit of a lion-heart, he belted a guttural roar that resounds through ribbed vaults of the streets, even as you read.
Through his crucible, he chanced on success in unexpected hours and deeper truths about the transience of life and affluence, were at once revealed to him and yet obscured by the shenanigans of unforgiving fate. But despite the bittersweet realities that forged the man that he has become, Scott’s life bears a certain tinge of invincibility, an air of unabashed triumph.
This is nothing like the innate glow that enlivens the impoverished who believe that they have given life the slip, so that fate, deceived of her quarry, could blunder on without them.
As he clocks 45, Scott has no need for such frantic maneuver neither is he yoked to the desperation and acquiescence that characterized and frequently marred his life in the years of his turbulence.
Today, Scott glides smoothly on the surface of life’s stormy seas; not as a diver, a mariner or seeker of buried treasure, but as a real man in a sea of ciphers, as a father, a lover and friend, and one supernaturally pleasant dude. Although he may spend the next few years flying privately and chasing prospects, he will land with aplomb, casting a joke with natural ease and archiving fresh feats that most people spend a lifetime trying to achieve.
As he held each new addition to his family in his arms, he felt overwhelmed. The arrival of Scott’s third child cemented the love he shared with his wife, Seiyefa.
Like a cub lioness, Scott’s third child and second daughter arrived as a bundle of joy and pleasant addition to the Tommeys’ pride. Some discerning folk promptly named her the “Lioness of Afia Nsit,” a creditable spin-off on her father’s sobriquet, the ” Lion of Afia Nsit.” A lioness is usually identified with strength, initiative, tact, ruthlessness (when need be), maturity and compassion for other members of the pride. Scott’s little girl no doubt commands the cozy adoration of such desirable attributes.
It is noteworthy that Scott welcomed her into his household on November 1, 2015, outside the shores of Nigeria. The Chairman of OGL had travelled out of the country to stay by his wife, Seiyefa’s side and offer her comfort as she undergoes labour to deliver their third child and second daughter.
At her arrival, Scott was ecstatic. His heart throbbed with indescribable love even as his belly fluttered rapturously as if he had butterflies flitting about his innards. When Scott’s newborn smiled for the first time, the smile morphed into a fathomless smithereens and they all took flight, each sliver unfurling as the newest vista to the Tommeys’ fairy-tale of bliss and uninhibited joy.
No other form of delight causes his heart to skip than to watch his dear wife, Seiyefa, grin and glower with boundless love and satisfaction at each new child she delivers into their home. The bittersweet pain of labour promptly dissipated from her psyche as she smiled lovingly at her newborn and husband.
At such auspicious hour, Scott felt reinvigorated all over in the sweet blaze of Seiyefa’s affection and reaffirmation of his masculinity and pride as father, lover, husband, man. Watching his third child doze and snore gently in her woolen shawl and cushioned cot, Scott realized with renewed passion and gratitude that babies do more to men than make fathers of them.
He acknowledged that having a baby’s sweet face so close to your own, for so long a time as it takes to nurse them, is a great tonic for a man’s soul. No language can express the power and splendor and valour of Scott’s affection for his new child.
The newborn, like her siblings, reminded Scott of tiny cherubs, a reaffirmation of his belief that God creates babies in order that the world might go on and fellow like him could nurture fresh hopes about the future, in an epoch led by Natalie, Stefan and his newly arrived “Lioness of Afia Nsit.”
However, through the spasms of sweet joy, Scott became conscious of the fact that fresh responsibilities were required of him by fatherhood. Being a lover and husband was becoming a walk in the park; but just when he was getting the hang of his duties as husband, lover, provider and man of the house, his beloved children arrived thus imposing fresh demands on him.
Returning home from a work routine that exhausted him intellectually and physically, he faced fresh tasks at the home front. Some of the tasks encroached on his social independence and were not particularly thrilling but like all fathers, he had to man up and measure up to expectations. He had to juggle fatherhood with work and a whole lot of things.
Suddenly, he had to start learning to sing lullabies and understand baby gibberish in order to bond effortlessly and lovingly with his wards. Although he was no stranger to playing the shepherd, as he had early exposure to such responsibility, caring for his younger ones at an early age, fatherhood posed a different ball game entirely. Happy birthday to Scott Tommey.
