UNDYING LOVE

An Igbo man, (different from an Ibo man) was toasting the living daylight out of a very pretty girl, who from her body language, would rather she were caught with a mad man, than the man pestering her life now. But if she thought Mr NNA was going to give up by such useless body language, she was in for a shocker.

Mr toaster threw every line he had learnt from his days about town. No luck. Then it hit him. This is not a love “uwantiti” type of gal. This is one of those “iji ego” cabal. Ngwanu, lets go there!

“Ok. Babe.” He tried with the deepest Nnewi accent he could muster. “Look hia… If you say yes… anything you want I willi give you.”

“You are kidding me.” Feigned the lady, in a voice filled with fake surprise.


“Ehn.” Replied our broad, as he bent waist down, touched the floor with his finger and simultaneously rose and touched his tongue with the same finger and finally raised it to high heavens. “I swear.” He said as he concluded the ritual that is usually believed to convince all doubting Thomas of the sincerity of the claimant.

“I willi buy you house…. “ He pressed on… “buy you car, dayamond and dash you plenty forex.”

“All of that for me?”

“Inna su Igbo?” He asked just realizing that he would have been more convincing in his mother tongue. She replied with “What was that?” No need for answer.

“See, ‘swithat’ if you say yes, I willi do anything for you…”

“Will you die for me?” she cut in before he could finish.

“Mbanu… slow down, my dear… the love I have for you is an undying love.”

As I sit here typing the above joke, I cannot but wonder what love has got to do with a lot of things these days.


Every now and again, once a man is said to have been involved in an affair and shit hits the fan, women begin to generalize their abuse on men. All men are dogs. Castrate them. They are all bastards. I pray their pecker fall off. I pray they catch aids and die. The cases of John Terry, Ashley Cole and Tiger Wood come to mind here. Go figure.


Do not begin to think you know where I am going with this, because you don’t .
Valentine Day is soon going to be a public holiday in Nigeria, if the passion and importance placed on that day is anything to judge by. How else can you explain the amount of threats and scheming that goes on in just getting a lover to make sure he or she is not somewhere else on that day but with you. Women are the man plotters of these schemes. What is a polygamous man supposed to do in the web of all of these plots and counter plots to be the one he wakes up with, shares the day with and everything in between before the dinner and all the other stuff behind closed doors.


I know of a woman who had a bitter quarrel with her husband on the 11th and the bad blood flowed till the 17th. I might add that on top of that bad blood was her monthly blood. So even if things had been resolved… it would still have been a bloody waste of… I then asked in the light of all that, what did she want him to “make sure you are back in Lagos” for? To savor the cold war and bad blood at home? Pun intended.
Woes betide you to decide to have meetings at anytime between 4pm and 10pm on that Val day. You will have to bring all those at the meeting with you home that night if you want to wake up alive. Or even just attempt to say you didn’t feel like going out that evening. When “Mrs You” had boasted to all single and married she knows of how you and she were storming that ball or Val party live. Don’t even dare.


Sorry I digress.

What do these women want on Val Day? What have we not done all year that only that single day will set right? What love remains to be proven? Can these women see the cabal behind this fraudulent romantic blackmail slash commercial harvest slash, opportunistic day?

I said I do, didn’t I? I know I did. I have your wedding band on my left hand. Ok let me rephrase… I have the wedding band I bought for you to give to me on. You bear my surname. Do you still want more proof of love?


I grew up to know there was a day like St. Valentine’s Day. With constant practice I got to know it was important you had to have someone to call your own on that day. I remember dashing from Abuja during my NYSC days to meet my Val in BENSU, Ekpoma, Bendel State, only to find out I had been supplanted by a nearness to babe factor. A guy in school won over me who was far away. This was in spite of the fact that I was head over heels in love with her.


So I ask again, what do women want? How do they want us guys to prove our love?
Lately, after my daughter was born on Valentine of 2008, the day took on a new meaning for me. I forgot that Val Day in Ekpoma. Yes I always remembered it. Sue me. I remembered it because I was involved.
So as I was saying, Valerie gave the date a new meaning. A day to celebrate that wonderful bundle of joy given to me by my wife , in the middle of all the corporate demands on her time.

Or was I wrong? Yes I think I was. Valentine will now forever be bitter sweet. Val will always be sweet because of Valerie… bitter because a man who decided to prove his love beyond all reasonable and unreasonable doubt lost his life trying to protect his wife. He stood up for love. He showed his wife that he really loved her. I am not saying she doubted his love. No. I just thinking of what would have been the matter if he had said, “NO, I am not going to no garden or park today just so you will be convinced I love you?” Had he kept quiet and the guys who wanted to dance with his wife were allowed to, would he have ever been able to prove his love again? Ever?


As I write this piece, knowing that Efenji Efenji, the Senate correspondent for Africa Independent Television, was stabbed to death on Valentine’s Day, trying to stop some guy(s) who wanted to dance with his wife and also let the world know that he was fulfilling his role as a man, a husband and a lover… I just wonder… where are all those who jump to high heavens to scream about how rotten men are… how men are dogs… how the unfaithfulness of men made them lesbians… where are they to praise Efenji Efenji.

So I ask again… what do women want us to do to prove we love them? Or do they want us to die for them?

Because the love wey me I get na undying love o!!!