A young beautiful vivacious damsel decided to exchange vows with the Adonis of her dreams. She was so much in love with this handsome man – so much that not even a Jewish Rabbi could convince her not to tie the nut with him.
She called him perfect, incorruptible, pure, blameless, faultless, spotless and guiltless. She also said he is the most trustworthy, upright, righteous, honest and humble man still alive on planet earth. Even when her previous bride warmed her that her soon to be bridegroom is a complete clueless man.
Even though he wasn’t shoeless like his predecessor (the husband she disgracefully dumped so she could marry him).
She remained adamant, insisting that he is the key to her salvation, the door way to her redemption and the pathway to her liberation from the shackles of perpetual cum extreme poverty. She made it clear to all her critics that he is the solution to her economic recession, unemployment issues, exchange rate issues and, her insecurity problems.
Few years down the marriage, she realized that the grass is never greener on the other side. Few years down the journey of marriage, she discovered that her shoeless husband was far more honest, more humble, more honourable, and more desirable than her current clueless husband.
Few years into her marriage proper, she discovered that her life was far better economically, politically, culturally, socially, morally and spiritually with her shoeless husband than under her clueless husband.
She discovered that she could eat more than thrice daily, flourish, blossom and had freedom of movement under her shoeless husband than under her clueless husband
She also discovered that she had absolute freedom of speech and the liberty to express and be herself under her previous husband.
She never for once experienced any form of domestic violence under her shoeless husband but here she is, constantly been abused, battered and violated on a daily basis by her clueless husband.
Thank goodness that this resourceful damsel who now looks older than her grandma in the village due to constant bashing from her clueless husband had the wisdom to sign eight years marriage contract after which she is at liberty to marry another husband.
As the eight years contract came to a bitter end on May 29, 2023, she sat down close to the window of her house. At that corner that gives her a complete view of what providence has blessed her with.
She starts reminiscing her marriage life, making comparison between her shoeless and her clueless husbands. Deep down her thought she began to analyse where she was in the year 2015 when she deliberately demeaned, debased, disrespected, disregarded and divorced her shoeless husband; and where she is right now after eight years of marriage with her clueless husband. She summarized her disastrous quagmire to be “an unfortunate eight years of marriage”.
In 2015 when she was still married to her shoeless husband, her inflation rate was in single digit. It was just 9.01%. But after eight years of marriage with her clueless husband, it jumped to a double digit of 24.34%. Her exchange rate as at 2015 when she was planning to shamefully divorce her shoeless husband was just 222.78 naira to a dollar. After a gruesome eight years of wedlock with her clueless husband, in 2023, the exchange rate has skyrocketed to 760 naira to a dollar.
As she walked around the house slowly, she finally sat down on her sofa contemplating and comparing her standard of living between when she was married to her shoeless and her clueless husband. She discovered that despite the fact that her clueless husband kept collecting loans from every loan app out there in the world, the living condition of her children was depleting and deteriorating every day by day.
As she takes an in-depth look at her family dept profile, she realized that as at 2015 when she was happily divorcing her shoeless husband, her total family dept was just 2.11 trillion naira. But as at May 2023, after eight years of consistent borrowing by her clueless husband, her entire family dept became 46.25 trillion naira. Within eight years of marriage, her clueless husband made her the poverty capital of the world. Within eight years period, he tripled the unemployment rate among her children (four out of ten of her children have no any source of livelihood). He doubled the price of fuel (PMS). Within eight years, the price of a bag of rice became higher than the minimum wage. Over 20 million of her urchins are out of school.
As she goes on and on reliving the past eight years of her unfortunate marriage which has obviously been characterized by monumental failure of the highest order, she wished she had listened when the wise men of this world cautioned her against tying the nut with her clueless husband. She so wished she had remained married to her shoeless husband whom, although had his own weaknesses, but was free from wickedness.
He had deep compassion, pity, sympathy, empathy and genuine love for her children. He treated them as human beings. He gave them the freedom to expression of their grievances. They also had the liberty to protest, demonstrate on the street and also call him unprintable names anytime things went wrong in their family.
He deployed every means within his disposal to secure their lives and properties despite the heavy insults they showered on him on all their social media platforms. He was even willing to sacrifice his personal ambition of remaining married to her, just so that her children would have a better life with her clueless husband; since he presented himself as the Messiah who could give them what they all desired.
But it’s too late to cry when the head is off. The die is cast! The chicken has come to roast. As she and her children head to court for the official divorce, it dawned on both of them that their lives had witnessed a consistent form of exponential retrogression for the past eight years.
Everything her clueless husband promised her as a marriage vow was a scam! All the sweet-sweet words he used to deceive and dissuade her heart from her shoeless husband became clear in her eyes. He promised to end corruption but their eight years of marriage witnessed an unprecedented level of corruption with impunity in every sphere of their lives.
He promised her maximum security. He said once she gets married to him, he would protect her and her children from terrorist, kidnappers, armed bandits, unknown gun men, Fulani herdsmen etc. But unfortunately during their eight years of marriage, her children were been killed like chicken on a daily basis.
Bandit became even more emboldened to carry out their nefarious activities on a broad day light. Her clueless husband failed woefully in all his promises. Now that she wants to divorce him and remarry another man, she became so skeptical of who to marry. She didn’t want to repeat same mistake again. Among the three new best suitors that are seeking for her hand in marriage this time, she remembered vividly that she had to move from marrying a shoeless husband down to marrying a clueless husband, in her anxiety she started seeking the face of men of God so that this time she wouldn’t end up with a heartless husband!
James Patrick is a Nigerian writer, teacher and political scientist.
jamesboro1987@gmail.com
