Abiku
is a Yoruba word which means predestined to die. The word describes children
who die shortly after birth. The death could occur anywhere between a few hours
after birth to a year on. Families plagued with the spell of abiku or spirit-child often go through
successive episodes of burying their babies before they have a child who finally stays. Indeed,
surviving children are christened with names such as Durojaiye or Durotimi,
which denote staying alive. The advent of medical science has however revealed
that genetic and congenital factors, not some cosmic mysteries, are responsible
for infant mortality. Parents are now aware of infant-exterminators like
genotype incompatibility, malaria and other immunizable diseases; hence the
fading of abiku from the Yoruba
vocabulary. But, I need to resurrect the word.
I
am not using the word in the post-natal sense, though. Instead, I want to
introduce you to Abiku businesses; businesses predestined to die. Thankfully,
corporate law has laid out the ‘personality’ of business entities, so I can safely
use the word ‘die’. It is commonly said that 4 out of 5 Nigerian startups will
cease to exist after the fifth year, but that is not my headache; we can chalk
that to Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’. My pain is what becomes of the one
surviving business. You see, after years of dreaming about a business, after hours
of toiling to set it up, after navigating the treacherous economic terrain of
this country and after surviving beyond the proverbial fifth-year of demise,
shouldn't these businesses have come into their own?
