By Mairo Muhammad Mudi
I allowed Asma’u to nag her way out of her anger for what she thought was my foolishness.
“You are as foolish as a firstborn! You kept kicking men out of your way, eligible ones for your foolishness waiting for someone who just refused to come. You said a man with a wife, right?”
I nodded my head like the good girl I was trying to be to Asma’u.
“Why did you reject Maiwadata?”
“I just pity his wife when the man told me that he didn’t have any intention of adding another wife until he set his eyes on me and that he wants to marry me within a month!”
Asma’u laughed dryly, getting angrier! “Did I hear you say, you rejected him because you have sympathy for his wife? So the one that you are waiting for, what has his wife done to you that doesn’t deserve your sympathy? I think I will go see your mother because this isn’t ordinary!
“I want you to look for that man and tell him that you are ready to marry Maiwadata!” She ordered me like a mother would to her child.
“It is not possible!”
“But why?”
“I don’t have his number or address!”
She paced our little space thinking deeply. After a long silence, she said, “I will look for Maiwadata for you!”
I nodded my head because I was tired of the argument and at the same time hungry. I need to freshen up, pray eat and rest.
Asma’u took her phone and kept scrolling as if she was looking for all the answers to my problems there. She is a good friend and sometimes made me wonder why she was so engrossed in looking for a way out for me to get settled as if she too wasn’t a single girl. I once asked her, she said because all the men were rushing for me and she wanted me to hook up with one before the good ones stopped coming. She jokingly said it was my rush hour.
Since that day, I watched as Asma’u became restless looking for a way to link up with Maiwadata but after a week she had to give up dejectedly.
If I had warned her and gave the reasons which she was aware of, why she wouldn’t see him, it would call for a series of nagging. How would seeing a man who wasn’t only a billionaire but a strong kingmaker who detects who becomes who in our country be easy? She told me she had been to three of his offices at different locations in the city but she was denied access even at the main gate asking her to put a call through to him so that he could order them to let her in.
She also told me that she almost spent a whole day sitting near the gate watching for the cars that came in and out, praying that she would see him passing so that she could stop him and tell him she is my friend! Before I could tell her the impossibility of that action, she told me that a security man who is her tribesman told her that Oga’s entourage never stopped for anything, he said it might be easier to see the president without appointment than Maiwadata. It was then she gave up and came back home with a long face.
I seized this opportunity to win a point against her. “You see why I wouldn’t want to marry someone like him! A husband that doesn’t have time for me!”
“Who told you? Bintu you would have everything you need in this world and this is where you get the perfect polygamous life you always dream of. Here you are talking of having time for yourself while you have forgotten what you told me, that the main reason of wanting to be a second wife is, you wanted space for yourself, you detest always having a man by your side, you wanted a sister that she would be there too when In-laws attack you! I have never heard such foolish reasons for wanting to buy trouble for yourself! Do you know most single girls that walk into polygamy is just because they don’t have a choice?”
“I don’t believe you Asma’u, it should be out of love!” On hearing this, she laughed deeply and I was happy at least she laughed.
“Foolish girl, you always want polygamy, if those girls that go into it, it is out of love, then what about you? The man is not even here for you yet! So what love are we talking about here?
And last week, Allah answered your prayers and sent a rare perfect way to practice your polygamy but what did you do? I mean you would have no stress at all, he has his work and a whole country to face, your rival may be in Nigeria while you are in the UK or US or she may be in the UK and you, in Abuja!”
“My friend, calm down so that this my rejection of Maiwadata won’t give you heartache! I don’t think he was serious, if he had, he wouldn’t just leave just because I rejected his offer once! This man didn’t even talk to me, he sent and assumed that I didn’t have a choice. He thought I have to accept him just because he is rich and influential! Do you know what irritated me when that his big-for-nothing errand man came and begged me to come into his car because he wanted to talk to me? I went in and without asking for my permission, zoomed his car off. And when I asked him where he was taking me to, he said, he was giving me a lift home so I should tell him where. I didn’t finish digesting his arrogance when he kept congratulating me severally, I was thinking of the reason for it when he said Maiwadata sent that he wants me to be his wife! What arrogance! And without mincing words, I said no!”
“Asma’u, if you were there, knowing you, you won’t even want to finish that ride with him, he just asked me that his boss wanted to know if I had a boyfriend, I said I have many of them!”
“I am sorry but I didn’t feel respected rather insulted. How could I accept a marriage proposal this way? His only qualification to toast on my face was that he is a billionaire!”
Asma’u came to my side and held me saying she was sorry. “Now I understand you better, I know you are highly principled, I am sorry I was blind to your reasons, I thought this was a good opportunity to fulfill your dreams. In Shaa Allah you will have a good man that deserves a rare human like you!”
“Thanks for your understanding and also for caring. I am lucky to have a friend who always puts me first!”
“Now I will help you pray for that poor guy with a wife to rush in here.” We both laugh!
“Not poor but at least a comfortable man to feed and take care of us!”
“Whatever!”
Mairo Muhammad Mudi is the author of Diary Of A Northern Single Mother.
