A journey through blood, belonging, and the complicated search for the people who shape us before we even know their names.
The first time Chidiadi Okoro seriously considered changing his surname, he was not searching for a father.
He was searching for a missing part of himself.
At thirty two years old, standing in a Lagos registry with a pen in his hand and a deed poll before him, he found himself facing a decision that looked administrative on paper but carried the weight of a lifetime. It was not simply about adding or removing a name. It was about inheritance, belonging, memory, and the complicated question of who has the right to shape the story of a person’s identity.
For three decades, Chidiadi had carried his mother’s surname.
