I was on Zoom with a few friends when the topic moved to these ‘special packages’ doing the rounds on WhatsApp. My friends were laughing and saying they wanted some girls to do ‘special package’ on them. Their belief is that it wouldn’t work as they had ‘strong heads.’ What I couldn’t tell them was that I was a victim of this so called ‘special package.’ Or maybe I should say, I almost became a victim of one.
I was married to a woman who from the onset believed that, to make progress in life or before one embarked on anything, one must ‘consult’ with some powers. When we were dating, she told me her mother had gone to ‘check’ to know if we were compatible. I am aware some people do that but since they didn’t ask me to follow them, I said, do whatever you like. These were the signs I should have paid attention to but I was in love. All I wanted was to take her to bed every day, every minute…I was foolish and I paid for it!
We had our first child before we even got married; so when she told me her mother was going to ‘check’ i just thought, ‘when I was knacking you and you gave me a daughter, you didn’t ‘check,’ it is now you want to go and ‘check,’ be deceiving yourself.
To ‘check’ is to consult with other mediums to determine what will happen in the future. People who check with co called Alfas and prophets or babalawos/iyalawos are, people who go to ‘see’ what the future holds for them. As for me, I believe in God, I am not a jimjim Christian but I have never gone to any medium to ‘check’ anything; my motto is ‘que serra serra whatever will be will be.’ The future is not mine to tell…
This woman, I can’t even call her my ex-wife, Becky gave me two beautiful children; the only good that came out of our union. I began to notice things after about six months to 1 year of marriage. She had to go ‘check’ everything, I would tease her saying, ‘you would soon go and check whether its ok to have sex with me or not.’ Anyway, that also became the crux of our issue in the marriage, you know, at the initial stage, it was a mild irritation, afterwards, it became a serious irritation, it created a gulf between us, I remember forbidding her to go to anyone to ‘check’ anything.
She must have kept going and didn’t tell me the result from her ‘checks.’
And I suspect they must have told her we had no future together as well because one day, I woke up with someone chanting things over my head. At first, I thought I was dreaming but when sleep finally left my eyes, there was my wife, stooped over me, chanting incantations!
I told her, if she didn’t leave my side of the bed, I would kick her so high, she would not believe her eyes.
She told me he was doing it for me, that her prophet told her to chant and protect me from danger.
Can you imagine? How can you be shaving one’s head and the owner of the head is absent?
Like MKO Abiola used to say, ‘you can’t shave my head in my absence,’ lailai!
I asked her, ‘Why would you be chanting things over me while I am asleep? Shouldn’t you have told me beforehand?’ She said it was because she knew I would not agree to it. Oh yes, I wouldn’t have!
The next incident happened when she became pregnant for our second child; I woke up to find my wife naked, in the middle of the night, naked as the day and chanting some things…
Egba mi, o! Like Fela would say!
What is going on? This isn’t natural. This is wrong. What are you doing now?
She said the prophet told her her child was in danger, so she was told to wake up in the middle of the night, naked and be chanting things to ward off danger. The thing is, I don’t even believe it is a prophet behind all these things, she wasn’t carrying a bible or reading verses of scriptures, she was chanting like a witch!
I should have kicked her out of my house, right?
But she was pregnant, for my child, I felt, this one is being misled, let me leave her and her gullibility. could also be her special package was working on me and I didn’t know.
I don’t know how many times she had been doing this, maybe she had done several times that I was too tired to get up. I am a heavy sleeper, once I hit the bed, na go bi dat or when I finish on my wife, that is tonic for sleep, it would take a lot to wake me up. So thinking back now, I am sure she had said several incantations on my head and I was sleeping like a log of wood!
When our second born turned 2, my wife said she was tired of her job, she worked in a lab, she was a lab technician. She said she was tired and that someone offered her a job at a night club to mix drinks. Now, my wife is very good at mixing drinks…haa, she is a good mixer.
Much as I wanted to support her, I knew it was a bad idea; my own wife, going to a night club and mixing drinks for men…anything can happen. I have been to clubs and I know how we men behave with female attendants. I didn’t want that; she would be too exposed to so many men; I didn’t like it at all! So I said no, she should find something else to do.
After several quarrels, I agreed. I don’t even know why I did but I did. Maybe she did some ‘homework’ on me, who knows? I agreed and immediately regretted it. Because her level of jazzology just increased; she was dealing in all kinds of things every evening, the weekends I am home before she went to work. She would be saying things as she applied her makeup; powder, eyelashes, eye liner, she must be whispering things as she applied everything and got dressed for work…all of these on top of mixing drinks!
I asked myself one day, what sort of wahala have you gone to buy for yourself?
She would usually be dropped off at home in the early hours of the day, would sleep in the day like ashawo and go to work in the evening. Like I said, it was a decision I was asking myself, what jazzed you into agreeing for her to go work in a night club?
After a few months, like maybe three months or so, we began to quarrel seriously, our kids were young, I just couldn’t cope with a wife working such odd hours. And oh, by the way, she was making money…as in, she would come home with a bag full of notes, some crumpled, some in wads…it was too much. Men were giving her money. If they were giving her that much money, it is never free, they were sleeping with her too.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
One day, I asked her to choose between that job and myself and our children… less than a week after I made that threat, I came home to find her things gone, my kids gone! She had made her decision.
I went to her parents and told them, they said I didn’t want their daughter to pursue her dreams. I said, ok. But I need to see my kids; they said that could be arranged. So I was on my own, solely.
Today, believe it or not, she bought a house for her parents in Agege; yes, confirmed. She bought an old house and renovated it; I hear she is renovating one for herself in Magodo. Oh yes, true tales. I am happy for all of them.
So her ‘packages’ are working, some innocent men are being used to sponsor these things and some of my friends are there making mouth, ‘my head is strong’…ye ye, the only strong thing about the head is you probably give the likes of Becky a good head, finish, that is all you are to them and your money!
He who has ears, let him hear o!
(Series written and edited by Peju Akande and based on true stories)
