13072019 - Buhari on new cabinet: I’ll never appoint ‘strangers’ again

Vanguard, SATURDAY, JULY 13, 2019—31
Yetunde Arebi
Twitter: @yetundearebi
yetty5050@yahoo.co.uk
08054700825
Ifound the piece you are about to
read in my pile of mails. It is a
contribution from an elderly
gentleman and loyal reader of the
Vanguard Newspapers for many years.
He admits that certain decisions made
in his younger days turned out to be
great mistakes and for which he now
suffers tremendously. For the sake of
this publication, I will call him Elder
Bode. Kindly drop a message or
advise for him through my contact
addresses or on a website. Cheers!
Dear Yetunde,
I have been a regular reader of your
column for many years as well as our
dear friend Treena Qwenta's column
and also Bunmi Sofola. And each time
I read your columns, I praise God for
you. You all are wonderful. You are
exceptionally good and I score you
Excellent. But let me quickly warn you,
it is more difficult to remain on top than
to reach the top. Experiences abound
and I will not build upon this too much
so as not to lose track of my main
objective. (I am most grateful for your
kind words, sir.)
My first point is to say that even
though your column treats issues
across all strata of the society, I want to
say that my age-group is marginalised.
Since it is your paper, The Vanguard,
one of the best papers we have around
that said we should cry out to the world
to hear, that we should speak out, if we
are marginalised. I am protecting the
interest of my age group to say that you
should know our problems, so as to be
able to advise us. Mind you, we often
say, the rich also cry, so also the old and
the aged, widows and widowers have
their problems and they cry. They need
to be heard so as to be advised too. Or
you don't believe that you can give
advice to us?
Now to my life experience. I can say
that I am blessed by God. Anytime I call
on the Almighty God, with a little
seriousness, believe me, He would
answer me. But I am a prodigal son. I
am a sinner, an adulterer. I don't drink,
smoke, gossip, go out like some other
men who you can call crawlers. I don't
steal, I can't steal. It is not in my
character. I was blessed with a good,
well mannered, gracefully cultured
woman and beautiful children. They
are all exceptionally supportive, too
wonderful to express on pages of
newspaper like this. Only God can bear
me witness on these things. It is the
grace of God, not my doing.
But as a prodigal son, I never
appreciated these blessings, all these
beautiful qualities, until I lost them and
lost focus. It was my ambition to have a
large family for I loved children. I want
to just look right, left, front and back
and see that I am surrounded by them.
I want to call on Tunde, Femi, Olu, even
when I have only one message to send.
In fact, I become happier when about
two or three of them struggle to pick
up the message. That is me and that is
where I derive my joy. My wife, before
I lost her to the world and because of
my wayward life, was exceptionally
good, very humble, so loving to the
extent that she completely renounced
the faith of her birth for my sake to join
my own Christian faith. She became
more Anglican than me who was born in
the faith.
Then, I met this satanic lady whom I
thought would be a good addition to my
happy family. Somebody said recently
that you don't marry two good wives in a
lifetime. In order words, you can't come
by two good women in a life time. I think
it is a wise saying. If you are lucky to
marry one good wife once in your life
time, you have to continue to praise God
for such may not, with emphasis, cannot
come your way again within a life time. It
is impossible. This is a word of warning
for the polygamous people. Let me quickly
also say that as it applies to women, so
also does it apply to men. Good husbands
Navigating the
road ahead!
As a prodigal son, I
never appreciated
these blessings, all
these beautiful
qualities, until I lost
them and lost focus. It
was my ambition to
have a large family for
I loved children
are equally difficult to come by. We only
tolerate ourselves. No ideal situation but
when you see what is good, you can
identify it as good. There are families and
there are families.
So, this satanic woman that I met was
too flamboyant for my liking. I am a person
that cannot hide his feelings, I expressed
my views immediately and since then she
started to work on me without my
knowing it. However, the few years I spent
with her was too eventful in my life that I
cannot express the catalogue of my woes
on the pages of Vanguard for one month,
even if our story is published every day
without advertisements or other stories.
It was just too much. She would kneel;
she would beg, in all insincerity, she
would deny facts stated by people
against her as lies. She would do
something glaringly like this and
would deny. The defence she would
put up could be so smooth that if it is
stated before the
International Court, they
would uphold her case.
Sometimes, she would turn
it into a laughing matter
after the damage had been
done, or she had been
outsmarted at her
smartness. She was really
satanic. If I had never met
her I will never believe that
life could be like this. It was
from her that I learnt that a
good woman should not
tell the truth to her
husband, should steal her
husband's money, should
spend her husband's
money anyhow so as to
impoverish him and make
him unattractive to other
women, and she should
always be with her
husband alone to the
exclusion of all others,
(including his family,
friends and colleagues) not
even minding the fact that
she met someone with him
when she arrived. She was
so venomous about my first
wife that she did not see face
to face with her till she died.
She could accuse my first
wife of sending medicine
(juju) to her and that she
could not sleep well, whereas
that one would pray for her
from time to time. In fact, my
first wife would always tell
me she dreamt and saw a big
snake entering our house but
I would always disabuse her
mind from such dreams. We
used to pray as a family and
as Christians, I believed that
God could do all things and
that was one of the reasons
that made me marry this
woman. She was looking for
a child and I believed that
God could give her one if she
prayed hard enough and I
wanted to help her. But I
made a mistake because I
never thought that after
getting the child, she would turn on me
and try to turn me into her slave. Her child
was her excuse for doing most of the
terrible things she did. And when it was
not the child, it was the fact that she was
a second wife or the other woman and that
people were resentful of her. There was
always a reason for one evil act or another.
It was this that I resisted that led to my
downfall. But she did not take it upon me
but upon my wife, whom she concluded
was the wall between having me
exclusively to herself. She had told me
several times that she would punish me
if I dared to leave her. But when I could
not find any peace, I had to leave her.
Through prayer, God separated us. I thank
God and still pray that she may never,
never, look for me again. It was because
of her threats and warnings to all those
who cared to listen to her when I left, that
she would deal with me, that forced me to
conclude that she did the evil work of
killing my wife. She has done her worst.
But as a Christian, I can't query God, more
so, that I am a prodigal son.
One thing I know is that there is
repentance through the grace of God
which will give me forgiveness. I have
been confessing my sins before God, and
his people. During my crying period, I
have stained my bed with my tears. Every
day, I wondered why she chose my wife
to punish since I am the offender. But as I
said, a Christian who goes to Satan may
not know how Satan works. Now, I have
lost a gem, I have lost a confidant, a
companion, one of the best Christian
women in the world through my
waywardness. Where do I go from here?
How do I pick my life again? I am already
60 years of age and this is where I need
your advice.
If you can publish this experience of
mine, I hope that your readers will find it
in their hearts to respond kindly to this
call and perhaps back it with experiences
of themselves or other people's. My line
of thought is that should a man at my stage
attempt any union with a woman again?
If so, what type of union? Should it be with
a relatively young woman or an aged
(advanced age) woman? Or, it is advisable
that I accept this (life as a widower) as
the end of life and remain aloof, facing
Christ's work?
It is my view that having been a loving
and caring father to my children, I should
be forgiven my inadequacies and wished
well as they should not expect me to suffer
in old age. But I have little idea what they
think of me. It is said that a man who has
enjoyed the blissful life of marriage for
over 30 years can be said to be naked
without a wife. Is this not applicable in
my case? A man needs a good companion,
a friend, a confidant, not only at our
advanced age but almost throughout our
lives. A few friends have suggested that I
manage on my own and if by the grace of
God I am able to live to such an age where
I'll need a helper, then I could engage the
services of a house help. But happenings
all around the world shows that this is
becoming more and more dangerous. I am
in a fix. I want advise and I need
enlightenment.
Finally, for those who may suggest that
I should go and reconcile with the satanic
woman, I want to say that she has since
our separation been married to two
men. When Jesus stated the parable of
the woman with seven husbands,
unbelievers would say it cannot happen in
our own part of the world and at this age.
But here in my presence, more than that is
happening and only God can save us.
Hmmm! I have a few take-away from this
narratives: We should never take our
spouses for granted. That in our greed and
self centeredness, we forget that we
already have the best and may never get
anything better. That no woman, no matter
her position wants to share her man with
another woman. And there are still a few
more. However, as requested by Elder
Bode, Please let's have your views/
contributions bearing in mind that we are
to help him chart a new path for himself. I
am counting on you. Do have a
wonderful weekend!!