Let’s just say
that I am still smarting from Malam Salisu Mogaji’s torture of his seven month
old step-daughter and last week’s article. Something however keeps me going
back to us as women and the need to take motherhood more seriously.
A woman I’d been
acquainted with for over four years shared her story growing up with me last
Mothering Day (Mother’s day to some), and I walked away almost in tears after
our long discussion. “Ma, is it right for a mother who abandoned a child at a
tender age to expect that the child will love and care for her in her old age?
Is that type of mother worth celebrating today?” she’d asked.
We have been
talking ever since and I am trying to get her to let go of her pain. Her story
is summarised below. Do have a wonderful weekend! ADVERTISING I hold my mother
responsible for my situation and I will never forgive her.
I have vowed never
to have anything to do with her until she departs this world. If they are
calling for mothers, my own mother does not qualify to answer to that title. I
was a little girl when my mother left me and my two younger brothers with our
father.
She left to marry
another man. Before she married my father, she had been married to another man
and had two children for him. Making a total of five children and two fathers.
She left them to marry our own father too. It was after our mother left us that
our father began telling us about all her bad behaviours and how she loves
money and men so much she would never be able to take care of her children. He
told us that he met her through one of his friends who is also a cousin to my
mother. He had accompanied his friend to a party in their village where he met
my mother.
Though she was married, his friend told him
that my mother had been forced to marry the old man because she got pregnant by
him. The man was said to be a farmer with two other wives and my mother became
the third. My mother told my father that she did not love the man and that he
was also not taking care of her.
If he really meant to marry her, she would not
hesitate to leave her husband and two children to marry him. At that time, my
father had no woman living with him as his wife had died during child birth.
So, one thing led to another and my mother came from the village to live with
my father, leaving her two children with their father.
She never bothered
to imagine the kind of suffering those children would be exposed to. All my
mother cares about is her own enjoyment and happiness. According to my father,
she began fighting with him after the birth of my brother.
Everything went
well between them at the beginning, especially after she gave birth to me. This
was because everyone was happy that she had finally made him a father after many
years of living without a child and wife. But their happiness did not last long
because my father could not provide my mother with all that she wanted.
Maybe Lagos life
opened her eyes to the good things that she did not know were possible. But my
father always blamed it on the women’s club that she joined. She would leave
the house almost every weekend on the pretence that they were following one of
their members to a function somewhere. I remember that she would always ask my
father, who would accompany her to her own village or attend her own party when
she had one, if she refused to attend other people’s parties. They also fought
about money all the time.
It took me a long
time to realise that she was just being wicked. My father was a vulcanizer when
they met, so, how could he have so much money to lavish on her especially with
the kind of lifestyle she wanted to live? After my birth, he assisted her to
start a trade selling, Ponmo (cow hide).
But my father said she would always complain
about the smoke from the fire and the hot water and she was very scared that an
accident on the job could leave her permanently scared. So she decided to move
to selling vegetables. My father said she was doing well from his own appraisal
and had even started buying straight from the farmers.
Still, money was
never enough for my mother. Her women’s club provided her all the excuse she
needed and maybe through her parties she met the man she left us for. On the
day she was leaving, she did not pack much. It became obvious that she must
have been packing her things long before then, only we never suspected. She
just told me that she would not be coming back that day. That I was old enough
to take care of myself and my brothers.
That I should make
sure to prepare food for them and that my father would be giving us money.
Though she said she would be back soon, something told me she would not. And
that was what my father confirmed to us when he returned home that night. I was
just a child of about 10 years at the time. I remember that my father went to
her village to report her.
Her cousin who is
his friend also came around several times. He spoke with their club president
and everyone he could. He told us he even promised her that he would not
disturb her or expect too much from her as a wife but that she should just stay
to help him take care of us. But she did not change her mind. Later we learnt
that she was living in Mushin area with one Alhaji who already had two other
wives.
That the man was
rich and already had two children living abroad and that he was taking care of
her better than our father would ever be able to do in two life times. Already,
the Alhaji owned his own house and had set my mother up in a room and parlour
apartment. My father did not own a house, we lived in a rented one room. That
was how my mother left us, began a new life with her new, rich Alhaji and
forgot about us. She went on to have two boys for the old man and was his last
wife before he died.
I can’t recall us
having any problem until my father married another woman. Though the woman was
nice to us before she eventually moved in, she made life really difficult for
me especially. She would force me to do all her work and still have something
to say against me to my father. That one would beat us mercilessly for her
sake. After she had a child, a boy for him, we moved into a room and parlour
and by then I had started secondary school.
I was the boy’s
mother for everything except to breast feed him. Even when he cried in the
middle of the night, she would wake me to back him while she slept with my
father who saw nothing wrong with all the bad treatment his wife was giving us.
It was only natural that I would become rebellious. I started hanging out with
some girls and with their help, I first travelled from Agege to Mushin to see
my mother after almost five years.
She was no longer
selling vegetables. The Alhaji had opened a shop for her in front of the house
where she sold cold drinks and provision, like a mini neighbourhood
supermarket. I will never forget that day for as long as I live. My mother who
had not set eyes on me and my brothers for several years just sent me off as if
I was a ghost or something terrible from her past that had come to disturb her.
She just started
shouting “ta le le yi”? Meaning, who is this? “Ki lo fe? Ki lo nwa? Ki lo de?”
(What do you want). Many questions all at once. She was shaking with anger as
she fiddled through her purse, threw some money at me and shooed me away. It
was N200,00. The girl that accompanied me there was worried and kept asking if
she was really my mother.
I had thought that
my coming to look for her would be an indication to her that something was
wrong with us and she would come to check on us. But I was wrong. She was not
moved. Life at home became more difficult for my brothers and I. I started
following one boy, a conductor on my route to school. Shortly after, I
discovered I was pregnant and my father sent me out. That was how I began
struggling to stay alive.
I went with the
boy to live in a room he shared with another boy. The boy was the owner of the
room, I later learnt. Life was difficult and he would beat me and throw my
things out too. One day, his friend raped me and when I informed him, he threw
me out instead of fighting with his friend for my honour. I later went to my
mother’s cousin’s house and they took me in and cared for me till I had my
baby.
Whatever I am today, I owe it to that man. My
mother at the end of it all did not get the kind of life she probably thought
she would. She had two male children for Alhaji but Alhaji died when they were
young. My mother got the least from the man’s estate as she had only two
children for him. She ended up practically raising them alone. Neither of them
made it abroad and even one of them who turned out a thug died last year.
Two of my other
brothers are dead too meaning that three of her seven children are dead. I am
the only female of the seven and here I am. I have disowned her and will only
see her when she is dead. Last year after one of her precious sons died and she
was sick, she connived with some people to come and inform me that she had
died.
I went there only
to discover that it was a lie. I left there in anger warning them never to call
me again until she dies. A mother is supposed to be a care giver. She is
supposed to stand by her children no matter the situation. No matter the
circumstances surrounding the birth of her child, the fact that she bore that
child in her body for nine months and went through great pain during labour to give
birth to the child should count for something.
This separates her from the father. A father
is merely a donor of the seed of life, a mother is the one that gives life to
the seed by nurturing it. Her place in the life of the child is different from
that of the father.
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