By Bunmi Sofola
Yeni was in her late twenties when she finally decided on whom to marry. The past two years had seen her jumping from the extreme social hub as a party animal to a religious freak. It was quite a transformation, said her mum, Florence.
“One minute, we were telling her to tone down her dressing, then the next, she was into this conservative dressing. She is quite pretty though and still looked good in spite of her wearing the barest minimum of make-up and jewellery. She also seemed to have gotten rid of her radical boyfriends and we waited with bated breath on what she would do next.
“I run a thriving school and she works as the accountant for the school. Very efficient she is too, and I had a plan of handing the running of the school over to her as soon as I dreamt of retiring. So, when she told us that she was involved with a new man who was also a member of her Pentecostal church, we heaved a sigh of relief. We wanted to meet him.
“It was all I could do to contain my disappointment when she eventually showed up with this ordinary looking man. He had shaved whatever remained of his hair and had a wispy goatee. In fact, he looked rather silly than sophisticated. He easily fits the description of a nerd! When frustration had driven my sophisticated daughter into the arms of this horror! I silently hoped he wouldn’t have got his fangs into her yet because of this Pentecostal thing! One hears of weird goings-on in some of these churches and I was concerned.
“I looked at her father and my younger son who were also sitting in the living room with us. If they were surprised, they didn’t show it – rather, they tried to be nice to him to show how liberated they were! My daughter was besotted with him. She portrayed him as an intellectual and every time he talked, she nodded her approval. He urged us to pray first before we had any discussion. I wanted to tell him he had no right to tell us what to do in our own home but my husband gave me a warning glance.
After his circuitous prayer, we went into what they termed their wedding plans. The church had finally picked a date for them to get married and they would love our blessings. After searching questions, we learnt he was in his forties, had never been married and had no living relatives in Lagos and both his parents were dead. As we made wedding plans, my daughter started cutting us to size. She didn’t want an elaborate wedding, certainly no asoebi. When I reminded her that I dealt with the best in fabrics at the Balogun market and that all my friends were looking forward to this wedding, she came with her supposed fiance to inform us that everything, including the wedding party, would take place in the church.
‘Priest, car crash and bags of stolen parish money’(Opens in a new browser tab)
“This was war. I have an orthodox church I go to, so we should all pray and leave everything to God! I had talked about giving them a flat on the school premises but I suddenly let it drop that the offer was off. I was converting the flat into a much needed school library. Maybe they could tell a brethren from their church to look for accommodation for them? The man’s eyes narrowed, but I stood my ground. He was the husband-to-be, he had better start learning how to be a bread winner!
“Later, I removed the battery from my car and told my daughter that I would need a fortune to put the car on the road. It would be cheaper to buy a new one, but in the meantime, we would use her car to run the school. I later colluded with my mechanic to ground her car that we were both using. I gave her her salary and nothing more. Let’s see if she could repair the car on that! Of course she knew what I was trying to do and accused me of trying to make life unbearable for her. I reminded her of how her man should be planning to look after her from now on. Afterall, he would soon be her husband, and they would have two salaries to spend.
“He had no car of his own and my findings had shown him to be a non-performing insurance agent. It didn’t take him long to shelve the wedding date their church had given them when I told them point blank that I was too broke to foot any wedding bills! Yeni was embarassed her man had all along counted on her to foot the wedding. What a con!
“Children, especially female ones, think they have all the answers once they are grown. You can never tell a gold digger and an opportunist from the genuine suitors but a mother’s instinct is always 90 per cent right.
“Until they are finally married and out of your hands, mothers should monitor the men in their daughters’ liveslike a hawk”.
Vanguard
