Capgras

By Charles Ayanleke
© 2009

Her major challenge would be how to leave home on a Friday night without arousing suspicion. She could alternatively arrange for a phony birthday party at a friends’. She chose the latter option. Several of her friends would be happy to play her alibi. She decided to use Grace. She was best equipped to keep a secret. The others were just basket mouths.

Her parents swallowed the Grace birthday party plan more easily than she had thought. Grace lived on the Island, so they wouldn’t expect her back too quickly. Her mum even suggested that she sleep over if it got too dark to return home. Mrs. Williams was scared of all the stories of abduction in the news.

There were evil men out there who captured young unsuspecting victims at bus stops and market places for the purpose of their moneymaking voodoo ritual. Often times, the remains of unfortunate female victims were found dumped on the roadside after their breasts had been shaved off for those rituals. Male genitals were also popular ingredients. Victims often bled to death after the crude surgery usually done at a ritualist’s shrine.

The following Friday, Aduke left home in the late afternoon on a “drop”. She had never been on the mainland by herself. Her school was located inside FESTAC as was their every other convenience ranging from grocery stores to farmer’s market and now, more recently their church, thanks to Joe and his fellow missionaries.
Father O’Connor had done a good job as the interim pioneering parish priest at the first ever Catholic Church inside FESTAC. Initial attendance exceeded expectations and encouraged the diocese to make more resources available to the budding parish.

As the cab pulled into the driveway of the impressive hotel, Aduke could not help but feel like a fish out of water. She had never done anything quite this crazy before. Even her escapades with the girls in high school where they scaled the fence to attend house parties nearby could not compare to this daring adventure. She had a bad feeling about this already.

She handed the cabbie a Naira bill and told him to forget the change. He was overjoyed.
“Madam you wan make I wait you for the day?”, he muttered in his well-polished pidgin English.
“No, that won’t be necessary” she replied. She wanted as few witnesses as possible for this trip that threatened to go wrong at any number of turns.

She tried to make her way through the lobby as inconspicuously as she possibly could. That was asking for the impossible. It was unlikely that a girl with her looks would be able to walk more than a few steps in any part of Lagos without a million eyes feasting on every single appendage of her female anatomy. It was just the way Nigerian men were cloned, they simply can’t help themselves.

She stopped in front of the reception desk in the magnificent hotel lobby. The floor was hundred percent marble and the walls were obviously painted in several layers to an exquisite finish. No blemish was visible. Every piece of furniture showed evidence of recent waxing and had gold-plated edges.

“Hello, I have an appointment with Mr. McCain in room 604. He is expecting me”.
The receptionist initially wore a trademark hospitable smile apparently expecting she was a guest about to check in. But as soon as Aduke finished stating her mission, the receptionist adopted a less charitable demeanor. She had seen too many whores and gold-digging schoolgirls prey on the endless expatriates lodging at the hotel that her reaction was standard. It was always a mixture of envy and disdain.

She knew the girls were making a fortune off these men. Her position as receptionist here barred her from fraternizing with her customers. She stood the risk of losing her job. Moreover, she did not have the looks of these young girls. Many of them had voluptuous bodies any man would die for and on the right side of twenty, unlike her thirty-something year old self.

“Far right, elevator to sixth and take a left”, she said almost irritably.
“Thank you”.
Aduke walked briskly across the hotel lobby, ignoring the lustful stares of half a dozen pairs of male eyes on the way to the elevators. She wondered what she was getting herself into. What if this man was a human trafficker, or a sex slave racketeer? What if this whole Catholic missionary thing was part of a grand plan of deceit? Well, she was in too deep now to have second thoughts.

She also had the matter of her own curiosity to deal with. She would readily admit to herself that she wanted to find out what it might be like to be with a white man. All her love experiences so far were with black men, Nigerian men. She wanted to see what the women she saw in the movies felt like when a Caucasian man showered romantic gestures on them. Plus Joe was not just any white man. He had captured her imagination from the very first moment she set her eyes on him.

As she pushed the doorbell the second time, she took a very deep breath and held her breath momentarily.
He opened the door and flashed her that warm, disarming smile of his.
“Hey, Aduke. You made it, please come in.”
“Maybe you should start learning how to pronounce the name. It is Ah-duh-keh”, she spelt out the syllables.
“Eh-duh-ki”, he murdered it again.
Aduke simply threw her arms in the air in a gesture of resignation.
“So, how was the trip from FESTAC? Hope it wasn’t too much trouble”, he said, while waving her to sit on the padded cushioned sofa next to the TV.
“No, not at all. This is my country, remember?”
“Oh, I forgot.”
“Well, I just felt you might need reminding once in a while!”
“You definitely talk a lot more than your appearance suggests.”
“What, you expected a deaf and dumb?”
“Ah, not at all. As a matter of fact, it makes you more endearing.”
“So let’s cut the chase here. A missionary escapes from his hellhole in Ireland. He finds some sanctuary in Africa where he can lose his inhibitions and screw as many black girls as he secretly dreamt about prior to leaving his miserable religious life and then returns to resume that life after a thorough confession of his sins to a Reverend Father. Is that the script?”

“Wow. Where did that come from? There is no script, Aduke. Can’t two adults just sit down over a drink and get to know each other platonically.”
“Well, I am barely an adult. I just turned nineteen last week.”
“Congratulations! I am twenty two.”
“A twenty-two year old missionary? Don’t you guys have better things to do than this Church stuff?”
“Well, Aduke, nothing is more honorable than to serve the lord in the days of your youth”
“What, so this will end up being a preaching session, will it? That’s even worse.”
“I apologize. Well, would you want to visit the beautiful main bar downstairs?”
“No! It was enough risk making my way up. Someone that knows my parents may be in this hotel, you know.”
“Alright, alright. What would you like to drink? The room minibar has several sodas. You can have your pick.”
“What are you drinking?”
“Irish cream”
“I’d like that too.”
“I apologize. I didn’t know you drank alcohol”.
“Well, you didn’t ask.”

As he poured her drink, he couldn’t avoid looking down the front of her blue blouse that struggled to contain her full breasts. Her cleavage was the center of his attention throughout much of the remainder of the night. She had a dark red mini-skirt under the blouse that appeared to be coming into vogue in Lagos at that time. Her long smooth legs accentuated the brevity of the skirt that also had a slit on the left side, leaving his imagination on overdrive.

“Chief Williams did not freak out when he saws you in this sexy attire?”
“He did not see me. Okay, so you are going to have a problem with my dressing as well then?”
“Not at all, you look beautiful!”
“You know, the images we see on TV of Irish girls comprise of long gypsy gowns and long sleeves with head scarves. Nigerian girls dumped all that a decade ago. We now follow the Americans. Make sure the world does not leave you behind while you are following the Vatican, this is the twentieth century!”
“I’ll surely deliver your message when I return”, he said sarcastically.
She sipped on the Irish cream wine again.
He was a little worried at how much of the wine she was drinking. It was sweet tasting and could be deceptive especially to the inexperienced like her.
“You want to go easy on that”
“Ah, sorry. I know it costs a fortune.”
“Oh no. That’s not it at all. I just don’t want to be accused of drugging you or something.”
“Don’t worry; I’d exonerate you of any wrong doing.”

He moved closer to her. Looking directly into her eyes, he took her right hand and smiled.
“What now?” She asked
“I think I’ve fallen for you, Aduke”
“You certainly don’t take very long to fall for people then.”
“No, I’m dead serious”
“I don’t even know what that means. Listen, you are a foreigner. You are here for only a brief period. Pretty soon, you will disappear into thin air. I may be young, but I am not stupid. If you’re looking for a quick shag, you got the wrong girl. Next door to you, on the Kuramo beach, you have multiple whores who’d be glad to see to your every sexual need.”
“I don’t need a whore, Aduke. I think I’m in love with you.”

She had been resisting the urge to look into his eyes. But as she looked up, their gazes locked and she suddenly felt weak at the knees. He was still holding her hand. As she tried looking away, he pulled her towards him, his other arm around her shoulder now. She did not even resist or protest. She knew when the moment arrived, she would be helpless. It was not something she particularly didn’t want. She decided to just soak in the novelty of the moment. She watched as his very white right hand unhooked her bra and gently caressed her chocolate colored breasts. This was an extremely uncharted territory for her.

As he traced his finger downward towards her hips, she could feel his warm breath blow heavier against her left cheek and neck. The moment she sank into the extremely comfortable bed in the five-star hotel room, she suddenly stopped feeling his masculine weight on top of her, as they both became weightless in the strange world of passion.

They both lay there for several minutes without saying a word.
Then she spoke first.
“You are really working hard at winning souls in Africa, Joe.”
“Don’t be ridiculous now.”
“So has anything changed?”
“I’m still in love with you, if that’s what you mean.”

*****************************************************************

They had continued to see each other almost every week. When it was becoming very obvious that Aduke was absent from home for no good reason and her parents started getting suspicious, she stopped making the trip to the mainland and Joe rented one of the flats on 22nd street, just the next street to them. He however tried to lie low as much as possible so Chief and Mrs. Williams didn’t notice their little affair.
It became even easier for Aduke to stay away from home. She began to sneak out at night after her parents had gone to bed.

Then one afternoon, she showed up at Joe’s doorstep.
He was not expecting her. She never came to visit in broad daylight so that they didn’t attract attention to themselves.
Whatever had happened must be urgent.
When she got in, she looked like she hadn’t slept for weeks. She wore no makeup and had bags under her eyelids.

“I’m pregnant, Joe.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really”
“Wow! Great news!”
She thought she was hearing things.
“What do you mean, ‘great news”’, don’t you see how much trouble I’m going to be in?
“Do you mean your parents?”
“More than that. It will mean suspending my College education again. We must find a way of getting rid of the baby.”

Joe flatly refused an abortion. His faith might have taken a hit in the last few weeks with the premarital sex and all, but murder of an innocent unborn baby was one original sin he was not about to commit.
He offered to come out in the open to the Williams and own up to fathering the baby, but Aduke refused that option immediately. She wanted to wait a little, at least until she started showing. That would buy them some more time.

To make matters more dire, it was getting to the time Joe had to return to Ireland. Aduke would have none of it. She wanted closure on what would happen to her and the baby.
Joe then suggested she come with him to Galway. He was prepared to face his future with her and their baby.
She knew that was the lesser of two evil options available to her. The alternative was to have to raise a mixed race baby alone in FESTAC and live her life answering strange questions.
Aduke had no passport, no Visas and had never left Nigeria. Joe talked to some influential parishioners who had contacts at the passport office. Her passport was ready in less than a week.

All hell was let loose when she informed her dad that she was pregnant. He lost it totally when he found out Joe was the baby. He publicly disowned her and swore he never wanted to see her again. She was also not allowed into the house henceforth.
Aduke expected an angry reaction. But even she had not predicted the extent of the punishment her father was imposing on her.

Joe was all she had now.
She moved in with him on 22nd street. He had proposed to her in the midst of all the madness. They had a short, quiet civil wedding on the grounds of the Ikoyi marriage registry. Neither of her parents were there. Joe’s very disappointed co-missionaries also refused to attend.
He obtained a spousal visa for her at the Irish consulate.

*This has been an excerpt from my upcoming novel.

Capgras

By Charles Ayanleke
© 2009

Joe McCain sipped again on his pint of Guinness.
He looked around this old Irish pub he had visited every Friday night for as long as he remembered. He always came here with the same guys. Conor O’Callaghan and Seamus O’Rouke had been with him from the very beginning. They all arrived in the United States about the same time and now all had their families in Akron. They had made it a point to maintain some of their Irishness by meeting up with others regularly at the O’Connel Bar in downtown.

Conor was an electrician who still works for the local electrical company. Unlike Joe, he resisted the temptation to quit since he was so scared of facing the challenges inherent in setting up his own business. He is a short, big, burly man built almost like a tank, with graying hair where it was available. That means only his chin.

Seamus is the exact opposite to Conor in appearance. He was slim, almost malnourished looking, with distinctly boyish looks that has served him well with women. Or has it? Seamus had been married and divorced six times in the last two decades. He tells all that would be willing to listen now that he’s done with marriage, but neither Conor nor Joe is willing to believe him.

This way, they could all catch up on old times and reminisce about Ireland. Their stories were very different from that of the earlier wave of Irish immigrants in the thirties and forties following the potato famine. They all simply wanted to trade the struggling Irish economy for the American dream.

Once Joe returned from the missionary trip to Nigeria, he had a complete change in several aspects of his life. That included his aspirations, his hopes, his expectations and his faith.
He was a devout Catholic and key member of the St Anthony’s Guild of his local parish in Galway. When the opportunity came in 1978 for the church to send four lay parishioners with a reverend sister and the assistant parish priest on a missionary trip to Africa, Joe jumped on it.

He had never travelled out of Ireland at that point, and being a relatively young man, he saw that as an opportunity of a lifetime to expand his frontiers.
He had watched how his poor parents toiled endlessly on the potato farm in rural Galway. Their lives were like a video tape in repeat mode. Everyday was like the previous one. Life was a boring routine. He had initially contemplated moving east to Dublin once he finished high school, but he chose to wait. Now how glad he was that he did. The more popular move was the Dublin move among the youngsters on the west coast at the time. There were the fabled limitless opportunities in Dublin. The country was undergoing a lot of restructuring and rebirth especially with all the talk of a European union.

Their small missionary party had arrived in Lagos at a time of unaccustomed prosperity for the locals. It was the oil boom in Nigeria. The country had just discovered the black gold a few years previously and now, every segment of the society was oil drunk. The country had just finished hosting the International Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC), trying its best to project its new found wealth to the rest of the world. A whole new town was built for the purpose of housing participants at the festival. The new development is named after the event to this day.

The Nigerian Government had suddenly appeared to be at a loss about the future of the grand new development after the festival closed. What followed was a very generous auctioning of several of the housing units to civil servants at ridiculous rates by the Federal Housing Authority (FHA).
One of the first families to move into the new estate after the first wave of auctioning were the Williams. This interesting family was typical of the civil service family of the seventies. The head of the family, Chief Segun Williams, was a permanent secretary in the ministry of Agriculture. His ministry had been the main driver of the Nigerian economy prior to the discovery of oil. Now they were being gradually relegated as the ministry of petroleum resources took over the driving seat.

Mrs. Williams was a headmistress at the local elementary school. They had five children, two boys and three girls. The eldest girl, Aduke, was a rare beauty. She had just completed high school and was not sure what course to pursue in college. She was tall, slim, with a smooth ebony complexion and long dark hair. She had curves in all the right places, sexy wide hips and full breasts.

Joe McCain and the rest of their missionary party arrived at the Williams’ on a bright tropical afternoon on the invitation of Chief Williams. The local Catholic Bishop of the diocese had introduced the chief to the priest, Rev Father O’Connor. Their mission was to help establish the first Catholic Church in FESTAC town.

Joe can not remember a word that was said at that first meeting or indeed at subsequent ones. He was never able to take his eyes off Aduke. She looked like an African goddess or something. Now there were very few blacks in Ireland in the seventies, and certainly the few there were could only be seen in the capital Dublin City. Joe had never travelled out of Galway up till that point, and his only contact with black people was on the television.

He would repeatedly sneak out of their hotel base at the Eko Le Meridian to return to FESTAC. It was extremely difficult to see the girl. She was regularly restricted from going out alone from the house mainly because the Williams realized their baby girl was now fully matured and they needed to protect her the best they could from unscrupulous men.
Joe did not see himself as unscrupulous. At the same time, he knew his feelings would kill him if he didn’t at least somehow address them. He would feel much better if the girl told him to fuck off. At least he would know he’d tried. But he just could not let go without trying.

The first time he went back alone to FESTAC, he instructed the cab driver to drop him off a full hundred yards or so away from the Williams’ house on 21st street. He had to use the cabs as he had no valid Nigerian driving license and didn’t know the local roads even if he had a car. The cab service was very well run and extremely patronizing especially if you were willing to be a little generous to the drivers. It was popularly referred to as “drop” by the locals. For a few extra quid, the driver could stay with you all day taking you wherever you wished to go that day, neglecting any other business or customers.

Joe had walked the hundred yards cautiously. It was still unusual to see a white man walking alone on Lagos streets in the late seventies. The few expatriates there were could only be seen in their expensive jeeps and mostly lived in Ikoyi or Victoria Island; the most affluent parts of Lagos at that time.

He stopped by the corner of the street and called a young boy he saw rolling a car tire by the roadside. “Do you know Aduke?” he asked the boy.
The little boy nodded. He added he was a family friend of the Williams.
Joe’s eyes widened. He asked if the boy could do him a favor for a few bucks.
After he explained his little plan to the little boy, the boy was confident he could pull it off. As Joe squeezed a Naira bill into the boy’s palm, he could see the disbelief in his eyes. The lad had obviously not been expecting any tip so generous. One Naira was a lot of money to a ten-year-old in the seventies.

Joe had now been waiting about thirty minutes and was growing increasingly restless and impatient.
Had the plan been busted? Did the little boy dupe him? Perhaps Aduke wasn’t even available.
At that moment when his spirit was beginning to dampen, he saw her silhouette against the backdrop of the bright tropical sunshine. He could not believe his eyes. It was going to happen. His heart started racing, He had no idea what he was going to say to her. Or how she might react to whatever he had to say.

He watched her approach slowly. She could see him just around the corner. She walked with the self-assurance and grace of a goddess. Her wide hips seemed to adopt a rhythmic dancing movement as she walked toward him. Her long legs appeared to speak to one another with every step. This girl could walk straight into any modelling catwalking event all over the world and pick the top price.

His heart was in his mouth.
“Hi”, she said.
“Hi, my name is Joe McCain”, he said.
“I know you. You came with the missionaries didn’t you?” Aduke asked almost rhetorically.
“Yes, I did.”
“So, why did you return alone, and why aren’t you coming in?”
“I came to see you”
“Why?”
“Well, I guess I’d just love to know you better as a person”
“And you couldn’t do that by coming into the house and in the presence of my parents?”
“Well, I don’t know how the chief might respond…. I wouldn’t want to put you in trouble.”
“Actually, this is the approach that is most likely to put us both in trouble”
“It’s more complicated than that…I also wouldn’t like the other missionaries to find out”
“Ha. I always get the bad feeling with clandestine arrangements”
“Trust me, I mean no harm”

“Okay, so what would you like to know…. I only have about five minutes before mama starts screaming my name.”
“Would you be able to have a drink with me sometime, so we get to know each other better?”
“That’s just impossible. I can’t leave home for more than ten minutes. My parents will freak out.”
“Ah, common, Aduke. You aren’t a baby. I’m sure you know how to excuse yourself. That is of course if you would like to get together with me for some fun time.”

He left his hotel address and room number with her and gave her a twenty Naira bill. She almost fainted. Twenty Naira was a lot of money to a teenager in 1978. He told her to use the money for a “drop” to his address. He said he would expect her on Friday night. If he doesn’t see her, he would get the message.
The locals popularly called the twenty-naira bill “Muri”. It bares the bust of the assassinated former military head of state, General Murtala Rabat Muhammed. The country’s main international airport in Lagos was also later named after the slain leader.

Joe shook her hand and turned back towards his cab driver waiting in the distance.
Aduke just stood there for a minute, watching this white man return to his cab and staring at the crisp green bill in her left palm. She was genuinely confused.
As his cab drove away, she slowly started to walk lazily back towards her house. Her life was suddenly becoming a fiction novel. She had a lot of thinking to do in the next couple of days.
It was Wednesday.

She went straight into her room and just lay in bed examining her options.
She could not deny to herself that she had noticed the attractive young Irish man from the first day her dad hosted the missionaries. His golden cropped hair and muscular frame were just as alluring as his blue eyes and warm smile. It was the first time she was really seeing a young white man up close. Her previous encounters were with older white men like the aging parish priest in their village in Badagry on the border with the Republic of Benin and her English teacher in high school.

Although she’d found him attractive, she was certain he was a religious man on a missionary trip and would have no desire for women. She had been shocked beyond belief when little Samson walked into the kitchen to tell her a white man was waiting for her outside.
Samson was no stranger to discrete missions like this since he was the go between for her and Bayo too while their relationship lasted. Her parents never found out about her affair with Bayo. She was glad it ended because it was putting a lot of strain on her studies at the time, and he was a well known player all over FESTAC anyway, so it was good riddance.

But Joe would be a different proposition altogether, She would now have to leave the safety of FESTAC town and head to the mainland. She would love to experience the elegance of the Le Meridian hotel. She had heard a lot about it. Yet she could not pass up the opportunity to see his cute eyes again. She could not believe that he had also taken notice of her.

She must have a special effect on men. She was beginning to notice how much of their attention she actually commanded. Her mum had always warned her that most young men were after one thing and one thing only. Once they got what they wanted, they’d usually lose interest, mama would always caution

But that wasn’t her experience with Bayo. She found the more they had sex, the more he wanted her. She was the one who had to break it off because the passion threatened to consume them both. And he was having several other girls on the side. She felt she wasn’t special to him, he was just using her like several of the other girls.
She knew that was not a problem limited to black men only. But she was prepared to see how Joe would be different, especially since he appeared to be so God-fearing. It must take a lot of conviction to leave your country for a missionary trip to a distant continent.

*This has been an excerpt from my next novel.

Food matters

07/04/09

Countless Nigerian men in the United States and the rest of the Diaspora are suffering silently because of their marriages to ‘fast food’ wives. This is interesting as it is becoming increasingly difficult in this day and age to marry a Nigerian woman who knows her way around the kitchen.

Young Nigerian women of marriageable age that know their way around the kitchen are indeed a dying breed on the cusp of extinction in desperate need of a preservation program. And this worrisome trend should serve as a serious warning to those Nigerian men who have refused to learn how to cook and still depend on their wives for a good Nigerian meal.
Such men need to be advised to take cooking lessons and be seriously warned that modern Nigerian women do not have the culinary astuteness of their mothers; this is no fault of theirs, but rather a result of the times and society in which they have been brought up.

I was at a social event last weekend where music, food and drinks were plentiful in true Nigerian fashion. It appeared that every Nigerian dish was served with guests filling up multiple times. There was okro soup, pepper soup, plantain, jollof rice, moi moi, eba and too numerous to list. I watched diligently as the guests trooped expectantly back and forth to the serving table to fill their plates and subsequently their stomachs. But one particular gentleman that sat next to me drew my attention to this debacle that is becoming the fad amongst young Nigerian women.

This guy, recently married to a beautiful young Nigerian lady in her mid to late twenties, confessed to me as to why he had to eat all he could at that party – “O’ boy, this is my only chance, o,” he stated leaving me in a perplexed state as he had not provided the context before now. “What do you mean,” I retorted.
He looked around to ensure that his wife was still chatting with friends at another table before confessing it all. “My wife need help o, na so so catch-up dinner I dey eat for house.” I could not help but be amused at this admission and upon further reflection, his face betrayed it all. “Burger King is now king in my house,” he continued as he muscled balls of eba down his throat.
I asked if he did not know of her inability to cook a good Nigerian meal before he married her and his response further amused me as it was evident that he was blinded by her beauty which regrettably eclipsed other equally important qualities a man should seek in a woman he intends to marry. Yet, this gentleman was hardly alone; many Nigerian men are wallowing sorrowfully in the same situation, coming home each night to hot dogs meals, pizza and burgers.

In some cases, the wife can cook, but simply does not have the time as she, like the husband, also works eight to ten hours a day. This is the reality of America and the West where two incomes, in these uncertain economic times are now necessary to sustain the family. In such a situation, a man should not expect his wife to rush to the kitchen to prepare a simmering Nigerian dish for she too must be tired after a long day at work and if there are kids involved the stakes become higher as she must also attend to them, assisting with their home work and preparing them for school the next day. Therefore, under these conditions, expecting her to cook is tantamount to expecting the man to mow the lawn and wash the cars after a long day at work.

I remember well the worrisome case of a Nigerian woman a few years ago in the United States that divorced her Nigerian husband whom she claimed turned her into a slave. As a nurse, she maintained long hours at work and returned home to continue a different kind of work. In this case, she was married to a man who expected freshly cooked Nigerian meal at each sitting.

Imagine such utterly unrealistic expectations in America where time is ever fleeting. The woman would plead with him to eat leftovers as she had to also tend to the kids and prepare herself for work the next day, but all to no avail. The man, on his part, would complain to the high heavens, accusing his wife of attempting to serve him grass (as in salad) meant for goats instead of his amala, etc. At the end, it was all too much for the lady who was forced by the circumstances to end the marriage. Unfortunate indeed!

The salient lessons here are rather clear for all serious men to understand – that every man must learn how to cook to avoid a situation where they would have to depend on their wives for a good home cooked meal. Besides if that wife is hit by a bus the next day, how would they eat that good meal? What of if she travels for more than two months and the food she prepared and put in the freezer has been exhausted, how would they eat the good meal?

The intriguing thing here is that some of these women use food as a weapon, no less, as a leverage against their husbands. They would say, “if you don’t do this for me, I will not cook that favorite meal of yours.” As the saying goes – the way to man’s heart is through his stomach” and the Nigerian man easily caves in knowing how well he loves his eba and okro soup and would pay any price to continue enjoying these meals.

In the West, given the scarcity of time, it is increasingly becoming difficult for Nigerian couples to have time for themselves. Many work three to four jobs just to make ends meet and when they return home, they barely have time for the family and their spouse. In the course of events, romance suffers, the children are not given the care and love they deserve and ultimately the marriage collapses.

I remember another case of a Nigerian lady in Virginia that complained bitterly of her husband's lack of attention to her that ultimately, she sought the comfort of another man who spared no effort in populating the earth through her. The husband later confessed that with three jobs at hand, he could not find time to appreciate his wife the way he ought to have.

Given these dire circumstances, it is overly imperative for these men to avail themselves of the magic of the kitchen as a matter of life and death. Therefore, Nigerian men are encouraged to preempt their wives in the kitchen by learning how to cook not only to ensure that the family has good home cooked meals to eat when the wife is not up to it, but as a means of self-preservation and to avoid situations where their wives would hold them hostage with their culinary skills.

Lest we forget to conclude the story of that gentleman at the party that paid homage to Burger King in his home; as the evening progressed, I noticed that he smilingly made several trips to the serving table with his plate overflowing with each trip. When it was time to go, I observed that he and his wife left with a plastic bag filled with food. And how could I forget his parting remarks to me, “I’ll be in heaven for a few days.” Indeed.

The lessons here are abundant and should not be missed; Nigerian men should be warned that not all that glitters is gold; they must look beyond the beauty and all the romance and assess their wives-to-be properly before taking the nuptial vows, otherwise, they too would pay homage to Burger King and eat ketchup filled soup all day long in their homes.

Be warned.

*Culled from "This Day",a Nigerian Daily.