By Suyi Ayodele

The Benin people have long ago embraced the concept of ogieriakhi, which holds that an elder does not revenge an insult. This native wisdom is to ensure that the elders, who are the pillars holding the community, don’t engage in anything that would make anyone question their wisdom. The Oba of Benin is one of the most respected monarchs in the country. His subjects treat him like a deity. If for instance, the Omo N’Oba is annoyed by an act of anyone, he is expected to maintain his stoic disposition. He cannot betray emotions in the public; he cannot lose his cool before mere mortals. He has those who avenge insults for him. The best he could do, if provoked, it to make the traditional pronouncement, evbin ni tai mayewe, ya riukoror, which means, if you don’t like what I say, go and hang yourself. That is a command from the throne. The one so commanded must carry out the instruction. But that rarely happens. In the last two centuries, or so, there is no record to show that an Omo N’Oba made such a pronouncement. That is the dignity of the throne, which translates to the dignity, wisdom and maturity of the elders.

But Edo appears to have lost that in recent times. Elders no longer behave as elders. What used to be commonplace among guttersnipes is what grey hairs now do. My mind raced to the recent outburst by Comrade Adams Oshiomhole against the first lady of Edo State, Mrs. Betsy Obaseki. Madam Betsy had, while campaigning for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the forthcoming gubernatorial election in the state, Asue Ighodalo, among some women in Ubiaja, urged the womenfolk to vote for a candidate who has a wife, positing that he would appreciate women and give them more recognition. She then quipped that of all the candidates in the race, only the PDP candidate “has a wife”. Here is how she put it:

“Let’s campaign and vote for the best candidate in this forthcoming election. I want to introduce his wife. Incidentally, out of all the candidates contesting this election, only one has a wife. That is our own party candidate, Asue Ighodalo. This is his wife, Ifeyinwa Ighodalo.” Hardly had she dropped the microphone, when Oshiomhole reacted. And he was brutal in his reaction. The former National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), took Madam Besty’s comment to mean a reference to the APC candidate, Senator Monday Okpebholo. The Comrade’s outburst was egregious! Hear him:

“I was shocked yesterday to see Mrs. Obaseki, the first lady, saying that our candidate has no wife. I’m sorry she had to say that because here is a woman who has no child. Between him (sic) and Obaseki, they are childless. They are not even ready to adopt. I don’t blame anybody who doesn’t have a child but people who have love for children go to a motherless home and adopt. They have not adopted. They are both in their sixties. So, your marriage, I don’t know whether it is a contract one or whatever it is, but they have no child….” Both parties missed the point. But in my own judgement, Oshiomhole’s response was the most infelicitous! I will explain.

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Marriage is a permissible will of God. We all make choices. And like our elders say, marriage is like a market that is set up in darkness (ojà òkùnkùn), it is only when the light shines that one knows what one has bought. Some are lucky to get good partners. Many are not that lucky. However, individuals have control over what they make of their marriages. Sustaining a home requires a lot of things: temperance, accommodation, wisdom, love and many more. If a man married two wives and threw the two of them away, we should look at his character alongside those of the two women. A man who says every firewood in his cooking spot brings out smoke instead of flame should be studied very well before a higher responsibility is added to him. Most good managers of homes are likely to be good managers of a collective destiny. That is what I think Madam Betsy alluded to.

Even at that, a simple stylistic study of her statements at the campaign rally shows that she is a better student of communication. She mentioned no names. She mentioned no political parties. That is what my Stylistics teachers called “Avoidance Strategy”, a principle that allows the communicator to extricate himself from the web of controversy. I still don’t get how Oshiomhole equates “Incidentally, out of all the candidates contesting this election, only one has a wife”, to require an indecorous response deriding the childlessness of a couple! The only explanation that is close to the equation is the saying of our elders that when dry bone is mentioned in a proverb, the old woman thinks that she is being referred to.

If, for instance, Madam Betsy had mentioned Okpebholo’s marital condition, knowing that the man lost his wife or wives to the cold hands of death, she would have stood condemned before God and man. But is that the case here? No. Okpebholo’s two wives are alive but might not be under his roof. That also does not mean it is right for Madam Besty or anyone else to deride another on account of a failed marriage. We all do our best to keep our homes going. If her jab is to say that those who threw away two women in quick succession, or those who could not sustain a marriage for just one year have no business running a state, since charity begins at home, she might be making a seemingly valid argument except that nobody knows the circumstances surrounding those failed relationships. Honestly, our politics has not grown beyond banal issues. That is sad enough.

Childlessness in a marriage, on the other hand, is beyond any mortal. Every man or woman desires to procreate. If it doesn’t happen, it becomes a problem. And it is not a problem anyone should use as a point of attack. That will be most the stone-hearted to do. Africans have different euphemisms to describe a woman who suffers such a fate. In my Yoruba environment, we don’t just call a woman barren. We call her Ìyá olómo púpò (the woman with many children). If, during an interrogation, you ask a woman without a child the number of her children, her response will be Omo pò lówó mi (I have numerous children). You don’t mock a woman with her childlessness. We use “àpón” to abuse someone, especially a man who is of age but refuses to marry, but not “àgàn” (barrenness).

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It is also not in the place of Oshiomhole to say that couples in their 60s who don’t have a child must adopt. Comrade as a Christian must have been told in his Catholic Catechism that Abraham and Sarah did not have Isaac until they were 100 and 90 years. Isaac had to beg God for Rebecca to have Esau and Jacob. Jacob’s favourite wife, Racheal waited on the Lord for long before she had children for Jacob. In our African Traditional Religion (ATR), Ifa, in Ogbè Òyèkú, tells us the Lapetun, the mother of Adan (Bat), waited for so long before she had her only child, Adan. Incidentally, Adan is our traditional symbol of fertility because if one opens the bowel of a Bat, one finds another Bat inside, and if that one is opened, another Bat is also found. This is why a good Babalowo prays for the woman trusting Eledua for a child thus: àtolè dolè ni ti Àdán, bí wón bá yèdí re wò omo ni (from foetus to foetus is the lot of the Bat; if they open your bosom, it is a child they will see).

I don’t know if Oshiomhole plays our local game, Ayo, the 48-seed game of 24 seeds in each row. Those who play that game very well are not known to have the capacity to keep secrets. If you want to know the latest gist in town, just go over to an Ayo spot. There, nothing is hidden. The beauty of it is that nobody takes any offence even when the topmost secret is laid bare in the public. Our elders warn those who have something to hide not to participate in Ayo game. They say àsírí ò bò lénu aláyò (Ayo players do not keep secrets). That is what Oshiomhole did when in the video, he alluded to the relationship between Betsy and Godwin Obaseki being a “contract” marriage.

If Oshiomhole had limited his tirades to his allusion that whatever marriage arrangement between Madam Besty and her husband, Godwin Obaseki, is merely contractual, one would have understood, though that is also belittling of his status in the society. This is also why Mrs. Obaseki should have known that anyone living in a glass house should learn not to throw stones. Oshiomhole, no doubt, knows, more than any other person, how the Obaseki couple came to be before the 2016 governorship election that produced the Governor Obaseki. The lesson here is that there is little or no difference between a contractual or cosmetic marriage and a failed one. In our culture, a cosmetic marriage is never the template given to would-be couples. We had a case in the early 90s, when a Military Governor (MILAD) of one of the states in the South-West drove out of the Government House in one vehicle, and his glamorous wife in a separate vehicle, when the MILAD’s tour of duty ended. To date, nobody has seen the duo together in any public function. Ironically, the ex-military man, now old, postulates on virtually every public policy. Whoever midwifed the “contract marriage” Oshiomhole mentioned is as good as the ‘contractual’ couple!

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If Oshiomhole knows anything about the “contract” marriage between the Edo State first family, and he is bringing that to the public because of politics, it tells more about his personality. There should be decency in one’s utterances, especially at that age. Our elders are not wrong when they say an elder talks more in his stomach than in his mouth (inú ni àgbà ńyá, àgbà kìí yá enu). How many other ‘secrets’ does Oshiomhole know? How many will he reveal whenever he is provoked? I used to think that they say age and wisdom are siblings. Why do we have the contrary now?

Mrs. Obaseki on her part should know that marriages break down for several reasons, and it is a worthy credit for those who navigate the odds and keep their marriages. However, asking Edo voters, especially the women, to put into consideration the ability of any of the candidates to manage his home before entrusting the entire state to him is not entirely out of place. It takes a lot to run and sustain a marriage. This however does not approve the tendency of any man to change wives the way a nursing mother changes the baby’s diapers. If such a man comes knocking to ask to rule a state, there is nothing bad in interrogating his managerial abilities to see how he has fared in life, especially in the little assignment of a home manager. Afterall, the Holy Writ, the Bible, enjoins that he who is faithful in little things should be given bigger and higher responsibilities (Luke 16:10)

Those statements by Oshiomhole are, to me, most inconsiderate and hare-brained considering his age, and absolutely unstatesmanlike going by his status as a former Labour leader, a former governor, a former National Chairman of a political party, and now a serving senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The devil-may-care way he said it all in the 59 seconds video is something a tear-away would cringe to say. It is misogyny carried too far. There is no justification for it, there is no excuse for such recklessness in public communication. The argument that Madam Betsy started it will not suffice here. When others are losing their heads, elders like Oshiomhole are expected to keep theirs. It is most unfortunate that at 73, Comrade Oshiomhole would choose to engage in a swine fight with a woman in the first place!

The APC stalwart is an experienced married man; one who has handled women for decades. One begins to wonder what lessons he has learnt in marriage if he could descend to the mud the way he did in this instance. If the younger generation can no longer look up to the older generation for wisdom, guidance and discretion in the face of provocation, what else is left of the society? This is beyond politics and its dirtiness. The outburst speaks more to the personality of the ex-governor. This is the same man who as governor told a widow, who only begged for sympathy, if not empathy, to “go and die.” I think I am genuinely ashamed. It is embarrassing if we must counsel Oshiomhole at 73 that it is unacceptable before God, and condemnable among men to deride a woman on account of her childlessness.

Childbearing, we need to reiterate, is an exclusive preserve of God, the creator, who gives and refuses to give. It is not for nothing that my people praise the Almighty as Aseyiowu (He who does as he pleases). On the other hand, failure or success in marriage is the man’s prerogative. If Betsy indeed alluded to whatever failure Oshiomhole’s candidate might have suffered in marriage, bad as that may be, it does not justify Oshiomhole’s mockery of Betsy and her husband, Governor Obaseki, on the account of their childlessness. Doing that, we need to tell the senator, amounts to mocking God and, who knows tomorrow? My countryside upbringing teaches me that eni omo sin ló bí’mo (It is who is survived by offspring that can be said to be fruitful). An elder does not run a zigzag. Edo people are too civilised. They are too cultured. That is why they intoned that elders don’t revenge insults with their age-long concept of ogieriakhi. The elders of my place also say when a child defecates in the family mortar, and the elder uses a rag to clean it up, it is akin to moving from one filth to another filth. Oshiomhole is an elder by all standards. Can we all appeal to him to please demonstrate that grey hair is all about wisdom?