Pulse Nigeria Poll: Readers say Peter should forgive his father who abandoned him

88% of Pulse Nigeria Poll voters say Peter should find a place in his heart and forgive his father and let the past go.

Peter, a 48-year-old man has been living with a serious pain in his heart after his soldier father abandoned him and his mother shortly after getting her pregnant.

He grew up not knowing his father and roots and was often the subject of abuses and insults from his mother's people who called him a bastard.

Now he is a rich businessman and after locating his father who has now fallen on bad times, his father is begging for forgiveness.

Read his story here:

"My name is Peter, a 48-year-old man. I was born during the Nigerian/Biafran Civil War to a Hausa soldier and an Igbo mother.

The only thing my father who was sent to fight the Biafrans did was to get my 15-year-old mother pregnant and promptly abandoned her to her fate.

Apart from his first name and state of origin, she did not know any other thing about him so when I was born, many people saw me as a bastard since I did not know who my father was.

I grew up with that stigma as my mother's people did everything to make life difficult for me apart from my grandmother, God bless her soul, who stood by me and brought me up.

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Little did we know that my so-called father was already married with children when he went to fight in the war. No wonder he did not care about me and my poor mother.

After I managed to finish my secondary school, my grandmother begged one of her nephews who was a businessman in Lagos to take me along so I could learn a trade.

When I came to Lagos, I became very diligent and threw myself into learning the spare parts trade and also took some night classes, took the University JAMB examinations and got admission into the Lagos State University.

By the time I had spent seven years with my master, I was already a graduate and my master settled me well, opened a shop for me and gave me enough money to start out.

But I was still not comfortable knowing that I did not know my roots or where I came from. I was looked down upon by people whenever I went to my mother's town union meeting. Anything I said was not important to them because, for them, I was a bastard child and therefore, had no say in their affairs.

having this in mind, I decided to look or my father and my root, at least, to be sure I am not a bastard. I went to Abuja and went to the Military headquarters and told them about my situation and the officers in charge did all they could and to cut a long story short, my father was traced to Plateau State.

I made the journey to Langtang where he came from and met with the traditional ruler and told him my situation. It was not hard to locate my family and for the first time in my life, I was led into my family compound and met my father face-to-face.

After introducing myself and told him who my mother was, he broke down in the presence of other family members and begged me for forgiveness. To complicate matters, he did not tell them that while he was fighting in the war, he had fathered a child and abandoned him.

From what I gathered, he had fallen on bad times and only lived on his pension which is not even enough to take care of the family.

While I am happy that at last, I now know where I come from and have a name finally, I can't seem to forgive my father for abandoning me and not even telling his people about me.

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I have since left Plateau and come back to my thriving business in Lagos but my father and other family members have been calling me, begging me to forgive and render some assistance to him.

I am still very bitter and cannot seem to forgive him even my mother has been on my neck to let bygone be bygones.

Peter."

The teaser for the day was:

Do you think Peter should forgive his father?

How Nigeria voted:

Yes, the man made a big mistake but Peter should forget the past - 88%

No, Peter should not forgive his father because of the great crime he committed - 7%

Peter should have the spirit of God and forgive his father - 6%

Peter should forgive the father but not help him - 2%

How would your vote swing here?