Contemplate this: I am someone born in Kaduna just after Nigeria was born, cut my teeth in the undulating plains of Fika, ran around on the cloud-caressing plateaux of Gembu where I started my primary education but was raised in the serene, motherly town of Maiduguri, even though I was told my ancestors came from Yemen, the pride of all freedom fighters who love justice and fairness.
Since then, I have travelled around Nigeria, interacting with Nigerians from diverse backgrounds. Many have become great friends, while others will remain so forever. Growing up as a young man surveying and savouring the world, a fair proportion of these friends were, well, must be, from the fairer gender.
Naturally, the period coincided with the desire for marriage burning in the heart and gnawing on the soul. And so many among those fair ladies were contemplated for the possibility of tying the nuptial knots. Among them were those who came from the Igbo stock. One of them was Uzoamaka, and she was among the first set.
Tall, ebony-black beauty, and well-endowed in the right places, Amaka was an evangelist with the Charismatic Movement of the Catholic Church. Through her, I learnt some aspects of the Igbo language, mainly the church songs in both Igbo and English. When you hear me rendering the songs from the Sacred Songs of Solo (SS and S), or Sankey, you may be forgiven for categorising me as a choirmaster. And I have read the Bible. Oh, I have read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation many times over. But I was more smitten by the Song of Solomon. Amaka had that effect on me. Yet I could not marry her because one has to be reasonably financially steady to betroth an Igbo damsel. I was trying to find my feet then.
Next was a Yoruba, Sister Shakirah, whom I met in Lagos through Sister Lateefat. It did not materialise, even though I connected with Rahmatu, another Yoruba lady based in Kontagora. While going back to Lagos to follow up on Shakirah was a challenge—after all, the transport money to Lagos was enough for me to “hold body” here in the North for a month or so—I was able to go to Kontagora with Ahmad Busari, where we passed the night in Rahmatu’s house. Man, you know we ain’t serious! Now, why am I speaking American slang?
Then I thought I had secured for myself Tayyibah, another Yoruba from Kwara, whom I enrolled in the International Institute of Journalism (IIJ) so that she could come and help move my media organisation to the next level. Still, she abandoned me when she went for NYSC, believing she had found the light – so to speak. When she was no longer “government pikin”, with eyes wide open like the headlights of a Dangote lorry, she tried to crawl back to me. I feigned an imbecile. She became open, but imbeciles didn’t know the difference. I don’t know about now.
Up North, I had “chanced” upon many tribes and tried to become their son-in-law, succeeded in some, and failed in others. However, I am now done with Nigeria. Gaskiya. Man, I want my children to have a good life. Nigerian in-laws do not give a damn about their grandchildren, I have just discovered. I do not want anything to do with marrying a Nigerian again—enough of this wrong investment.
Take America as an example, if you don’t mind. Aha, now I see why I spoke that slang earlier; the mind knew where it was going.
You see, I have seen with my naked eyes American in-laws who said, “We wanna do good for our grandkids, therefore we are gonna gift them a house, no, three houses.” Generous Yankees! And not just any house, oh! Real luxury homes sitting on thousands of acres! Three of such for just two kids, oh! And just because the mother of the two kids is their daughter, fa!
Shuwa, Kanuri, Fulani, Ijaw, Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Tiv, Babur-Bura, none give houses like these to their grandchildren, so why waste scant resources marrying their daughters? But Americans, oh, these are a unique breed. Bless them. They are out of this world! I must get me an American wife.
And I will want just two kids for some reasons. One, at my age, two are more than enough to chew on. Coming from a family of over eleven children and four grandchildren, that’s more than a company. However, for strategic reasons, I should also avoid miffing the Yankees by shooting myself in the foot; I have to go for two kids: a male and a female. To hasten the process, we will try machine incubation so that the hatched kids can be engineered into being twins and reinserted in the womb of my American wife, who will deliver my American kids. Man, I’ve got some sense, you know!
And trust my blessed and generous American in-laws to gift my twins, the children of their American daughter, three houses. If the kids are two, they won’t give them one to share, this I know. Each will have a large one, and then they will add one more for measure. And the houses must be big because Americans love everything oversized. They love big things; everything that’s theirs is big. Don’t you see their cars? Therefore, houses must be bigger to accommodate the big vehicles.
I’ll remain Nigerian, of course, but she and the kids must be Americans.
But not all the Yankees are generous. Must go round “God’s Own Country” to get the perfect ones. In some states, the people speak through their guns. I won’t go to South Carolina, for instance, where a 13-year-old kid, Cameron Simmons, tired of sleeping on the floor dialled 911 at 2 a.m., and told Officer Gaetano Acerra, “I’m tired of sleeping on the floor.” The boy’s grandmother, who loved him, couldn’t afford more than the basics: food and rent—survival, not comfort.
And again, I do not want those in-laws who speak through their bank accounts. No, pockets, please. Just pockets. They should be the types that pay in cash. No trace.
Hassan Gimba is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Neptune Prime.
