By Mairo Muhammad Mudi
As a young, nice and pretty girl, I had a lot of suitors from all walks of life but I knew who I wanted as husband. I told my best friend Asma’u and who ever cared to ask that, I wanted to marry a man with a wife. Yes I was interested in a polygamous family.
My friend always thought I was crazy, I admitted, I wasn’t a normal girl next door! Asma’u thought I was just creating an excuse to do away with one handsome, Mama’s boy boyfriend of mine who was tagging along us always.
She kept asking me what was wrong with the boy who is handsome, kind and from an influential family that any girl would be happy to have as a husband? I told her, he hadn’t a wife!
One day I came into our house and Asma’u was curious asking me who just dropped me with a big car. I told her an emissary from Maiwadata that picked me from work! Asma’u became so curious dragging me to the next seat looking at me with a new respect.
She said, “I knew this was what you have been waiting for when you said you wanted a man with a wife!” She laughed with a sincere happiness on her face! Before I even told her what was the message from Maiwadata was, Asma’u concluded and started dancing that her friend was going to marry a very popular billionaire. To save her from disappointment, I quickly bursted her bubble.
“Asma’u it isn’t what you think.”
“What?” She asked, disappointingly.
“Maiwadata actually sent someone to tell me that he wanted to marry me.” I said slowly picking my words, afraid that Asma’u might hit me with the way she was almost shaking.
“Ehen!”
“I turned down the request. I just can’t marry him.”
“But Why?”
“Just like that.”
“I think you are sick or you need ruukiya! How many girls do get people rushing to marry them every day? Who do you think you are by the way?” Asma’u was now enraged. I have never seen her this angry.
I kept repeating her questions in my head. “Who do you think you are by the way?”
Yes, who am I? The answer is I am nobody from no one but a very simple girl from a humbled background whose parents were not known who was just lucky that they got her educated. And I happened to be lucky to have a job that exposed me to so many different people who usually got a lot of attention for no reason.
My beauty isn’t extraordinary and I also kept asking myself why I got the attention I was getting? To rest my brain, I concluded I was just lucky and blessed by God.
Asma’u jolted me back from my thoughts insisting to know why I rejected Maiwadata, reminding me that I was the one that said I wanted a rich man.
I reminded her that I never said so, what I said was I wanted a man with a wife.
“What’s the difference? Was it not because you wanted a comfortable life that you decided to marry a readymade?”
I never knew my friend got me wrong in what I told her. Yes I wanted a polygamous home but not a super rich man! I needed someone to understand me as Asma’u wasn’t just getting me. She said she now confirmed that I was actually crazy and needed a doctor to examine my head.
Mairo Muhammad Mudi is an author of Diary Of A Northern Single Mother
