MY MARRIAGE IS ONE THING I COULD DO ANYTHING TO PROTECT...
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Years ago, a friend bought a house at Zone 4 in Wuse. I along with a few
other friends of ours who were all members of a club I belonged then
was invited to the 'opening party.'
.
The house owner had made
so much money from a contract job which he was keeping away from many of
us. When I asked him how it all happened, he simply said; “Japh, na God
o.”
.
I was to know soon that in Abuja, people guarded their
contacts jealously. No matter how close you were with anyone, you don’t
carelessly reveal your source of a big deal to him or her. That was the
kind of club I belonged in those days.
.
That Friday evening, we
all set out to Wuse Zone 4. It was a warm and colourful gathering. All
my friends – at least most of them, came in flashy cars. Amongst them
however, I was the youngest; and probably the poorest. I arrived in a
taxi with my pretty young wife whom every other man in attendance wished
was his. We were dressed casually but we stole the day the moment we
arrived.
.
I led the evening with gusto when I was handed the
microphone. My wife told me days later that some of the women had told
her that she was lucky to have had a very humorous person like me for
keeps. A few also told her that she was indeed very beautiful. But all
these acknowledgements faded into thin air the moment the women began to
brag about their husbands’ flourishing businesses, the big
high-charging schools their wards attended and their endless chain of
vanities.
.
“We paid over two million naira to secure admission for my son in that school.” One said.
.
“Ha,” said another, “I will tell my husband about the school so we can take my daughter there.”
.
They talked about the many colourful things in their lives while my
young wife sat there pretending to nibble at her cold salad. She had no
expensive jewelry to talk about. She had no expensive car to brag about.
Her husband hadn’t taken her to any oversea trip worthy of sharing the
experience with anyone. Her only child was in a school whose forty
thousand naira fee was still a challenge. It was a moment of
disillusionment for her. My wife felt empty in their midst. Why did I
bring her there? She kept thinking; her heart burning.
.
The alarm bell struck for me the moment I read her SMS on my phone where I sat with the boys having fun.
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‘Let’s go home please.’
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The ride back home was uneventful. We could only talk in monosyllables.
In yeses and nos. I sensed from the way she responded to my gossip and
probing that all was not well. But I couldn’t figure out what it was.
.
We lived in the coldness of that emotional war for two days more before
I finally got to know what had happened. ‘They’ had infected my wife!
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It was on our way to church on Sunday that she asked suddenly. “Why
don’t you want to tell your friends to connect you? Does the party not
reveal anything to you? How long do you want us to remain like this?”
.
By 'LIKE THIS' she meant that we needed to up our game to enjoy a
better life but I was perplexed. I had two jobs that were draining me.
On the sidelines, I had about three home-coaching classes that paid well
too. My take home pay was a little close to two hundred thousand. Bills
and debts were knocking me out and in pains I still trotted on.
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It was that Sunday that she told me all the things that the women had
talked about and how one of them asked her if she’d ever gone shopping
in Dubai. That was when I realized that I had joined the wrong gang and
must find a way to pull out immediately.
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Three days later, I told my wife to pack my few clothing for me because I was traveling the next day.
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"Traveling?" she threw apprehensively. "You never told me you were traveling."
Saturday, February 10, 2018
I rode with
a politician years ago in one of his many posh cars. We rode past a suburb and
found many a peasant in their misery and poverty. The panes were dark tinted
and wound up. There was no reason to wind them down because the car was only a
few days old and the air conditioner was in perfect order. The tinted glass
seemed to me like the gulf separating the rich man and Lazarus in paradise.
.
“Sir,” I said
suddenly, “how do you big men feel whenever you drive past poor people like
these?”
.
“Japheth,”
he responded with a smirk spread upon his face, “do you want an honest answer?”
.
I gave him
the nod.
.
“You see,
the fact that we have and they don’t is what makes wealth so beautiful. It
makes no sense when everyone is made rich. We are not meant to be equal.”
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Grimacing, I
told him he did not only sound disdainful and conceited, he was also being
resentful and less concerned over the plights of the downtrodden.
.
“You should
know sir that even if you feel that all men were not meant to be equal, it
shouldn’t be expressly uttered in the manner that you just did. You are only
privileged sir and..”
.
“Japheth, we
need not argue over this. You said you wanted an honest answer, and I gave it
to you. As a politician, I know exactly what you wanted to hear but if I had
told you, you would have said it wasn’t an honest answer. You would have said
it was because I am a politician. Do you think actors are the only people who
could act? No, no, no. We politicians act better. I could begin to cry in your
presence and pretend that I care about the plights of the people and you might
be tempted to believe that I indeed care. But I gave you an honest answer
Japheth; an honest one.”
.
I heaved a
sigh. He went on smoothly;
.
“The poor
always think that the rich hate them with a passion but I must tell you the
truth, the reverse is the case. It is the poor who hate the rich with intense
passion. The rich do not hate them as much. Too bad they hate themselves even
more but the rich don’t. The rich introduce themselves to their children,
exchange ideas and explore greater heights but the poor can’t do that for
themselves. If you get very rich now and decide to still hang out with the poor
people you knew before, they will kill you with envy. They only want to hear
the bad things that happen to you, the battles you did not win and the calamity
that you continually drag with you. They can’t sell an idea to you but if you
do sell one to them, they will betray you. Betrayal is more common amongst the
poor than it is amongst the rich.”
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I said there
were still good people amongst the poor.
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“Yes,” he
agreed. “There are quite a handful of them truly but one other problem with the
poor is that they can never be satisfied. No matter what you do for them, they will
still find a reason to complain. They hate us and also hate themselves. That is
the most painful thing about them. They are aggressive and intolerant. They
think you owe them because you are privileged to be rich..”
.
He went on
nonstop. Finally, he said something I will never forget. “Japheth; if I give
you this car and you drive it home, only a few poor people will come to
congratulate you. But if after a period of one month, the news breaks out that
the car has been stolen, they will all come to empathize with you. That is the
trademark of the poor; empathy!”
.
I was to
know a few days later that he was right to an extent. I was chauffeured in a
limo for the very first time and that experience brought to the fore that
indeed there is a deep-rooted hatred buried in the heart of many a poor person;
so deep it could consume everyone in a sweep.
.
That
limo-ride experience which can be found in the subsequent chapter opened my
eyes to a lot of things…
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THE
WILDERNESS EXPERIENCE by Japheth Prosper
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