This morning, while doing my rounds on the social media, I happened on a viral Press Conference featuring Chef Hilda Baci and her mother, Linda.
Now, Linda is a talker. She seized the opportunity with both hands and regaled the world audience with tales. Her idea of seizing the moment.
As Linda hugged the microphone, something in me snapped. My spirit told me I’ve heard enough. Ms. Linda boasted that she had laid a success path for the children to follow. So, she named the children, Gilbert and Hilda after rich and successful people in the neighborhood and it’s playing out in reality.
I couldn’t stand her boastfulness and kept asking myself where the father was, why he’s not been accorded any input. In my usual way, I poured my feelings on my Facebook Wall.
As I asked the question, who the father of Hilda Baci is, responses weren’t too kind on the father. Benjamin Roberts sent a material from Facebook and trust me, I didn’t look at the man in the photo who said he’s Hilda Baci’s father.
Fast forward to this afternoon, my brother Iyanga G Utuk who saw my post, called and promised to link me up with the said father, who I understand sells cement on Obio Imo Street. When he mentioned cement and the location, my brain told me, that can only be EFFIBABA, my friend of over 43 years.
Dang, I put a call to EFFIBABA. ” Are you Hilda’s father?” The answer, “Yes bro”. I wanted to know his whereabouts and he promised to meet me in my office. After 5pm, he drove in. We have just parted company and I want to correct some impressions.
Hilda Baci is from Ntre Oton, Nsit Ubium LGA, Akwa Ibom State. Her siblings are Gilbert, a graduate of Madonna University, who studied Electrical/Electronics engineering. He’s 30 years old. Hilda has a younger sister, and another brother, who’s born, October, 2010.
At 21/2 years, Hilda Baci was already reciting the Bible brilliantly at the Mt. Zion Church in Calabar.
When Ms.Linda boasted of sending the children to elite schools in Nigeria, she forgot to give credit to the father, EFFIONG BASSEY, who told me he went as far as buying money from loan sharks to keep the children in the schools that the mother chose for them.
If the internet jury were to be able to ask questions, the question to Ms. Linda would have been, how she, selling mamaput, miraculously paid 600k school fees for a child. Or is there something she didn’t disclose.
Finally, if any of the children, or Ms. Linda contest my contribution, there are free to state it the way it is. But trust me, I spent four hours with Hilda Baci’s father, Effiong Bassey Edem, and there’s enough to say about the mission to the Defense House, Abuja and other stories.
Another writer says…..
The man on the photo is the father of the rave of the moment, talking about the famous Hilda Effiong Bassey, who goes by a brand name, Hilda Baci. Hilda is the current holder of the Guinness World Records for the longest cooking time for an individual on earth though she’s yet to be verified by GWR. His name is Mr. Effiong Bassey Edem, he hails from Nsit Ubium Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State. He is a cement dealer and resident in Uyo, the capital of Akwa Ibom State.
Since Hilda came on the spotlight by simply breaking and setting a new world record for the longest cooking time for a single individual on earth, discussions/ interviews between her mother, Miss Linda and herself on Hilda’s success awash the mainstream/ social media space. But little or nothing has been said about Hilda’s father. Hilda’s success has been tied around God and her mother. The question has been, where has the father been while Hilda and her other siblings were growing up?
After thorough investigation, Yours Truly found out that Hilda and one of her siblings graduated from Madonna University, and the tuition fee person session for an individual is put at six hundred thousand (N600,000) naira.
Where could Miss Linda being only a “Mama Put Seller” at that time have raised such staggering sum of money for the tuition, other fees and their upkeep throughout the period they were in school?
The fees and their upkeep came from nowhere else than from their father, Mr. Effiong Bassey Edem.
According to him, it was tough seeing Hilda and her sibling through the Madonna University. He said at some point he had to buy money from shylocks with huge interest rates to make sure that they were educated.
No matter what may have caused their separation, Mr. Effiong Bassey Edem ought to have been given his due credit for the upbringing of Hilda and her siblings. It is totally wrong for Hilda and her mother to delete Mr. Edem from the success story of Hilda Baci.
By Concerned Nigerians
