Thread by @GbengaWemimo

He had no say in who he got married to
He was born at a time when arrangements were made long before the bride and the groom were born
He was born at a time when couples stuck to it and cope
He was born at a time when it is unheard of that a couple got a divorce
His own mother

was a difficult woman
His father tried as much as possible to cope
When his mother's difficult nature got too much for his father
His father married a second wife
That was how men dealt with difficult wives in those days
Divorce was unheard of but polygamy was tacitly encouraged

His father was a nominal Christian
He was very fervent before he got married to the wife chosen for him by his parents
When his wife began to give him all sorts of troubles and sleepless nights
He stopped going to church
His wife didn't see it as a sign of things to come
She

continued to trouble him until his mother and other relatives came visiting one early morning with the second wife in tow
She suddenly realized she had pushed too far with her antics
She ran to the church
She went to see the highly respected Reverend Atoyebi, she asked him to

intervene
The Reverend followed her to the meeting
The Reverend sat and listened as her husband and neighbors and even her friends confirmed that she was not a joy to be with
The reverend asked her if she had a defence
She sat there crying
The Reverend asked her husband for one

more chance
They were all in the village
Her husband was a farmer
She was a trader
They had eight children between them
Her husband took the five male children to the farm
She took the three female children to the market
Their life was supposed to be simple but she would never do

the basic wifely duty
She would go off to the market from 6AM to return late in the night
She was more comfortable with her trade
Her husband fends for himself in terms of cooking and companionship and he dare not complain
Whenever he opens his mouth to demand some of her time

she would go for the jugular
It is not in her nature to tolerate correction or criticism
Her mouth was quite fast and her hands were faster
Her children saw her full-blown madness when their father took them to a local bukateria to eat on their way home from church one Sunday
He

did this because she does not cook and the children would languish in hunger for several hours before one of her trade apprentices cooks for them
When they got home, her last child told her how their father took them to eat on their way home from church
She got angry immediately

She said their father did it deliberately so that people in the village will start calling her a bad mother
She said it was "Isolenu"
The next thing she did was go to the square where her husband and some other men of his age grade sat together to play games and read newspapers

She made sure she dragged the children along
When she got to her husband, she took a cane and started flogging the children one by one
She said she would keep at it until they vomited what they ate
One by one, the children inserted their fingers in their throats and vomited the

pounded yam and Egunsi soup
Her husband could barely restrain his tears
When her husband brought home a second wife, even her children felt it was justified
That was the world he was born into
If he had his way, he would never get married
His mother's mad antics was enough to

keep a young man's eyes off skirts for life
The wife chosen for him was from a reputable family
Her mother was a kola nut trader
She was brought home to him the year he clocked 20
She was 16
Of all his mother's children, he was the only one who tried to show his mother some level

of understanding and care
His older ones ran to Lagos or Ibadan or Kaduna or Oshogbo to live with relatives as soon as they turned 15
Because his father had taken a second wife by this time (His father gave his mother a second chance as requested by the reverend but his mother

screwed it up within a month)
Everybody felt it would be unhealthy for him to leave the house too
Of all the children, he was the kindest and he got his mother to control her impulses most times
So he stayed to be with her and this brought his wife under his mother's wings
It was

a mistake
He married a happy young lady
His mother said "I will teach her everything i know so that i can hand over my business to her when i die"
He was grateful and joyfully encouraged his wife to learn his mother's trade
His mother took his wife to all her suppliers and also

introduced her to her business associates and thrift collection organizations
His mother and his wife bonded
His mother died and his wife took over the business
Within a week, his wife had changed
It was as if she was possessed by the spirit of his mother
She did everything the

way his mother did them
He started experiencing the same thing his father experienced
He ran to the same Reverend Atoyebi that intervened in his mother's marriage
He told the reverend everythin
The reverend told him it was witchcraft
It was the first time he ever heard his mother

being referred to as a witch
The reverend told him that after he intervened in the marriage while his mother was alive
He suddenly found himself being attacked and afflicted in his sleep by some dark powers
The Reverend said he had to do 40 days fasting and prayer before he could

come out of that experience
The reverend said "I hope you didn't tell your wife you were coming to see me? Please don't tell her you came here"
He could feel the Reverend's fear
He was twenty-six years old at the time
His wife was yet to get pregnant
After his discussion with the

reverend, he gave himself a week to think things through
On a Monday morning in January 1982
He got on his bicycle as if he was going to the farm
He had sold his father's farm and had all the money on him
He rode to the motor park and left his village for the city
He didn't go to

to any relative
He went to start over in Port-Harcourt, a city so far away he knew he wouldn't meet anyone from his village
He got a shop and started selling car accessories
He said the more he looked at his life with her, the more he saw a repeat of his father's life
His father

died as a broken, miserable and wretched man
The two wives his father married tore his legacy to pieces
He was resolved not to head in that direction simply because he was given a wife he didn't choose to be with
He joined a church and claimed to be a new convert
Nobody knew he

was married before then
He joined the adult education class of the church and even though he could read and write (his father taught him) the education was very good for his business
He met a lady in the church choir
By this time the Reverend of the church has taken him as a son

because he treated the church as home and was always eager to support the revered
He got married to the lady he met in church and the marriage prospered
His business also prospered
He didn't go back to the village until 2005
By this time, his first wife had gotten married to a

driver with an agricultural company in their village
She had two children for the man but the man ran away in their seventh year of marriage
He ran away with a lady from Saki and abandoned her and the children
He didn't see her when he went to the village
She didn't see him too

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