RED SOUL IN COURT

CHAPTER ONE TWO DADS Reflecting on my execution, in a trance, of course by hanging, I began to think of how to narrate my journey. How it began, till I earned my execution. How it will be convincing to gain through, as I narrate to you my earned execution with bold identity of a murderer. Well, the story of one lady who was recently sentenced to death has taken the media, especially when different narratives have emanated in the media. The execution actually began when Maryann got herself in the webs of the country judicial where justice is traded. Although she had allegedly killed Sanda, her husband, there is where it began. But then who cares! Oh! I could get myself another execution if I get entangled with the transactional proclivities of the judiciary here. I implore you to please read through while I tell you my story; how I was hanged for allegedly killing my husband. He knew I could do that, but I didn’t. I had wished I did. I forgot I have been executed. Just telling my life in the past, anyways. Like many Nigerian girls, brought up in failed homes, my experiences were better revenged in silence. Failed homes, not just because I have two fathers, one Igbo and one Hausa, but also on the attitude of my fathers. I looked like my two fathers, especially my Hausa-Fulani father. But I have the enterprising heart of my Igbo father. Determined to succeed. Proud heart. Just like Achebe’s Okonkwo. Buried in the fears of failure. I knew I would take national attention someday. Whatever narrative, I don’t know, but it happened. It all began few years back, after series of heart breaks from my fathers who had r***d me in turns, cheated on their wives serially. My Hausa father knew I wasn’t his child. Well, biologically. He had loved me, at least for consistent daily provision. He had slept with my mother’s best friends. Confronting him had earned my mother some baskets of unapologetic slaps. Few days of yearning and unease reconciliation had always accompanied it. Our pastor had told my mum to always pray and never cheat as my father did. Actually, that was my Hausa father, Daddy P. Pastor Eds once told mum that a true Christian woman should always pray for her cheating husband so that the spirit of God will bring him back. Mum believed him. She maintained that usual Pentecostal prayer. Spreading some measures of ‘holy ghost fire’ across the women Daddy P slept with. Barely seven, I could always hear the voice of mum loud in my tiny r***d soul right in my classroom. That classroom, where Uncle Max had touched my bonbon, a little inside. His wife was also a teacher in our school. She also prayed like mum. May be, because she wears the usual mum’s ‘don’t take family affairs to the public’ kind of look. Not even telling her that Daddy P had also been touching my bonbon, deeper inside than Uncle Max. I almost thought Pastor Eds was throwing his weight behind a man of matrimonial irresponsibility, just like the judiciary actually did. Why would I even think like that? We ought to pray for our fathers too, Pastor Eds had told me when I complained to him that Daddy P doesn’t love me. My Igbo father had won in the court about my paternity. I don’t even know how to call him my father, or my Igbo father at least, or Ndukwe, his name. An average trader at Oshodi Market, unusual smiles do run and ripple through Ndukwe’s wrinkled face whenever I call him ‘dad’. That was different from the usual ‘daaadyy’ the children of his neighbors do call their fathers. Mine was different and foreign. He also loved me, at least till I saw blood streaming from my underwear, and a left over on a snake-shaped kind of part of his groin also. He had gone harder than Daddy P. Actually his finger had gone further than that of Daddy P and Uncle Max. Do I even have pains again? It should be painful. Actually it was. Perhaps to my soul. But my flesh anticipated more. He also cheated. Ndukwe had married another woman after mum left him to marry Daddy P. How unlucky mum was! I was too; perhaps worse than mum. Pastor Eds’ suggestion of ‘Holy Ghost fire’ may have worked. But it doesn’t actually kill. Till Daddy P killed mum, all the women he slept with were all alive. At least I knew about Mama Ekene, an Igbo woman that has shop at Sabongeri. Devil kills. And destroys. Mum would have killed also. Like I would, if any man again dares. Mum had left a husband because he was cheating and eventually married a man who was also a serial cheat, pathological liar. Mum never accepted that daddy P cheated. That will be accepting that devil had won. Devil usually wins though. Even in the judiciary. I wish I were devil, high masked kind of being. So Daddy P, Uncle Max, and Ndukwe, or just men, will be afraid of me. Pastor Eds had once told mum that devil came to kill and destroy. May be I can kill and cause some destructions. That would earn me some measure of respect. No! Fear, I meant. After a year I stayed with Ndukwe, he had died of HIV infection. But that wasn’t devil. “Can HIV also kill and destroy?” Maybe it is devil’s friend. I sure need a serious friend who can kill and destroy. Like HIV. I had cried enough that tears aren’t in my eyes again. “Men are evil”, I had told my new Almajiri friend, in Hausa. I celebrated my eight years birthday at Nasiru’s begging point. He was seventeen, but married to Amina, and has another girl friend, Halima. Amina had fought Halima to leave her husband. Beggars, men, also cheat? “But that wasn’t cheating”, Nasiru had insisted, in Hausa. “I can marry four wives. I just have one. Women are created for men. We can have as many women or how as we want”. Nasiru had boasted after giving me Kwilikwili for my birthday. “What would you do if your wife cheated?” I had once asked Nasiru. He took time to examine my face. I wished he was devil. I wished he can kill. “I will kill her and kill her lover”, Nasiru had responded the next day I went to meet him. “You can actually kill?” I had asked him. “Are you devil? Can you also destroy?” Nasiru laughed. “What if your wife kills you because you had cheated?” I had asked Nairu some days after Halima came to apologize to him. Angrily, Nasiru screamed in Hausa “she dares not. I am her husband. I can cheat. She cannot cheat. I can kill her. She cannot kill me. I am a man.” So, mum cannot cheat or kill Daddy P. She is a woman. Nasiru was right. Am I even a woman? I want to be a man, or devil. At least, since I can’t cheat, so I can kill if one cheats. I wished devil could have a place like Nasiru, where I can easily visit to know how he kills. It never did. I yelled in anger each time Pastor Ed refers to devil as ‘he’. Men are a lot, around me and beyond. Why can’t this being, devil, be a woman? Mum prayed everyday against devil. Casting away territorial demons. Spirits that manipulated her husband to cheat. Spreading periodically Holy Ghost fire on those women Daddy P flirted with, especially Mama Ekene. “Why didn’t Mama Ekene die since you have been spreading Holy Ghost fire on her?” I had asked mum when I was ten. She made a faint face, and cited where God had said that his ways are not the ways of men. Men! May be God isn’t a killer as men are, just like Nasiru had affirmed. Mum never ceased to pray. She newly learnt to conclude her prayers with ‘in the name of the God of Pastor Eds I pray, Amen.” “Pastor Eds’ God should learn how to kill”, I had murmured one of the days I eavesdropped as mum pray at mid night. CHAPTER TWO HOW IT BEGAN Few days after my thirteenth birthday, I had wanted to have siesta in my room. The argument between mum and dad was loud enough for neighbors, including mama Ekene, to hear from their rooms. Our apartment was barely separated from the general kitchen. Neighbors can always know what is happening in each other’s room. Our apartment was few rooms away from Mama Ekene’s. Perhaps mum was tired of spreading the Holy Ghost fire Pastor Eds recommended. I think that happened because Daddy P never changed. In fact, landlord just gave us notice to pack, because there was rumor that Daddy P slept with his fourth wife. I had sincerely wished I was a man. So I can have four wives and still flirt to my choice. But I was a woman. Even After my execution, I still think like a woman. I can’t have four husbands. I can’t flirt because my husband will kill me, and the law will have him supported. Perhaps he can purchase justice. Justice like I couldn’t before I was executed. I almost forgot to tell you that Daddy P indeed stabbed mum right in my presence as the argument went higher. And mum died. As Nasiru had said. She was a woman. I was also a woman. She died. Tears couldn’t flow again. Could it be that Mama Ekene was also spreading Holy Ghost fire as mum did? Perhaps her own was stronger than mum’s. Because Daddy P later moved in with Mama Ekene who rumor had it that she had poisoned her husband. So women can also kill? “Are men devil?” I had asked Pastor Eds after mum’s burial at Dikenafia, close to Orlu. I was there, dressed in long white skirt. Mama Ekene was also there. She had actually cried heavily while mum was lowered to the ground. “Mama Mmary’s best friend” one villager had said, pointing at Mama Ekene. How my name transited from ‘Mary to Maryann’, I can’t remember. Pastor Eds took me to a shade under one Udara tree. That tree actually belonged to my grandma, Mgbechi. Pastor Eds used his soft white handkerchief to wipe my rather oiled face. He thought I was crying. I should have cried. My mum was just buried. But my own share of tears had exhausted long ago. The last was the day Daddy P forgot he ate suya, scrums of hot paper were left on his finger, and he put his fingers into me, below my underwear. Very hot on my body, but hotter in my tiny soul. Pastor Eds had told me that devil actually manifests through men. “Through men?” I had asked him. “No. Not like male gender alone, but human in general”. Really! Devil actually manifests in human form. That’s amazing. “But men can kill; can cheat, as they choose to. Women cannot kill or cheat.” Pastor Eds had looked at me steadily, perhaps examining the way I pronounced ‘kill’ as if it was men’s right. “But Aisha recently stabbed her husband.” Pastor Eds added absentmindedly. “That was one Aisha. Not women”, I had thought aloud after Pastor Eds left to greet my grandfather. Grandpa gave me a gold chain my grandma had given him before she passed on. I held it strong as we drove through Owerri, heading back to far north with Pastor Eds. I lived with Pastor Eds till after my sixteenth birthday. I visited Daddy P who had already taken turns with Mama Ekene and other widows in the neighborhood. Pastor Eds once told me that Daddy P was beaten in Sabongeri market because he had s*x with a woman in one of the shops at the market. A grip of involuntary smile had ran and rippled round my always oiled face. “Do men have to cheat?” I asked Pastor Eds as he was about to sit close to me. I watched him look through my dark eyes, down to my lips that have always yearned to curse men. Curse Daddy P. Curse Ndukwe. Curse Nasiru. May be Mama Ekene. “Not all men do” Pastor Eds had responded wittingly, as though he was not sure. For over thirty minutes, he had made frantic effort to defend a narrative that has stayed in my r***d soul even as a little child. “My dear daughter Mary, I am also a man. Have you ever heard that I indulged in extra-marital issues, sexually abuse anyone? Our differences in terms of managing our proclivities and caution for actions that could endanger desired posterity varies. Bear no grudge against all as many are well refined to the fear of God.” For over two weeks, I had tried to process what Pastor Eds had said. I almost believed it until the day I caught him peeping through the narrow opening on the wooding doors to the bathroom where the wife of a neighbor was bathing. This was barely two weeks after he bathed me with sermons on men who are different. Well, I believed him. Even after my unjust execution, I still believe him. Perhaps I have been unlucky in my experiences with men. Neither did the judiciary actually care. After the burial of Mama, I stayed with Pastor Eds and his family for over a year. I learnt how to speak in tongues. I didn’t really know what that means, but his wife passionately taught me how to say things I don’t understand. Moving my vocal system, saying things she had explained are weapons of warfare. I kept wondering the kind of spirit we have to fight by speaking what we don’t even know what it is. Mumy Ifemedebe, Pastor Eds’ wife, had told me that “the things of God are foolishness to men.” My heart jumped in confusion “So, I have to be foolish to know the things of God?” I didn’t know when I asked Mummy Ifemedebe. She had chuckled, heaved sigh of momentarily relieve, looked up to the heavens. I also learnt how to tie a piece of wrapper around my head, and make sure that the cloth covers my two ears, a little below my neck from the back. I lived a triangular life: house to church, to market and to the house again, for over a year. I had enjoyed my stay with Pastor Eds, at least a year without s****l abuse or molestation. The worst then happened. The general overseer of the church where Pastor Eds worked sacked over forty pastors for poor financial performance. Pastor Eds was unfortunately among the pastors that didn’t make much money for the church. He was sacked. How can they sack him? I mean, can a pastor be sacked by a human? For low financial turn up? What do I even know? “Africa and religion, building businesses”, I had screamed when Mummy Ifemedebe broke the news to us. Another uncertain phase of life awaits me CHAPTER THREE FROM DIKENAFIA TO LAGOS The disengagement letter the church sent to Pastor Eds also states that we are to vacate the church residential building within twenty four hours. Pastor Eds quickly made arrangement to take his family to Lagos to stay with his younger brother to avoid any further action by the church. I later heard that the church general overseer had sent Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS, to forcefully evacuate any of the disengaged pastors that are still in the residential section of the church buildings nationwide. I had believed that churches and church properties in Nigeria belonged to the members of the denomination who actually contributed money through offerings, tithes. How could one man, the general overseer ‘sack’ pastors and forcefully evacuate them for low financial turns? I also thought pastors are called by God. Just like I had thought that the judiciary is the last hope of the common men. Well, that’s not my business actually. The pain of my execution still occupies my r***d soul. Pastor Eds sent me back to Dikenafia to stay with my Grand Pa, Adindu, and his last wife, Nwakego. Grand Pa had married two wives after the death of my grandmother who was his first wife. I had asked him why he married two wives after the death of grandma instead of one. “In our culture, it is important to marry more wives so that you can have many children, especially male children that will take your name far and wide”, Grandpa had responded. Again, I felt like women are adjuncts to the existence of men. May be God should stop creating more women. Let the world deal with the one he has already created. I don’t even know what to think again. Nwakego was a bitter woman as she had no children for Grandpa. I was told that she had several miscarriages which were attributed to the spirit husband she had because she was beautiful while growing up. I liked her, but her bitterness spread like wild fire, affected everyone. She had once told my grandfather: “Nna anyi, don’t you think that Mmary should follow my younger sister to Lagos and learn how to plate hair?” I had enjoyed the various versions of the pronunciation of my name. My Hausa family called me ‘Maryann’; my Igbo family called me ‘Mmary’, with a long doubling of the ‘m’ sound in my name. Some even called me ‘Mmary nne Jesus-Mary the mother of Jesus’. “I don’t like your sister. She is greedy”. Grandpa had responded. It is amazing how elderly people make decisions for the younger ones without any form of input from them. May be it is because I am nobody, had no father or mother. Well, I had visited the family of my biological father at Abagana in Anambra state, but they showed no interest in my welfare. My paternal grandfather had told me that his son, my father, died untimely because he had refused to listen to him. “I told him not to marry from Imo State, he will die early”, my grandfather had said the last time I went to Abagana. I was surprised because my father’s younger brother also married a lady from Ezinihite Mbaise, Imo State. He is still alive. “Different strokes for different folks”, I had summarized. After three months I returned to Dikenafia, my maternal grandfather, Adindu, had concluded arrangement with the younger sister of his last wife to take me to Lagos to learn her trade. Do I have a choice? Aunty Beatrice came to our place at Dikenafia and shared five thousand naira each to my grandfather and his last wife. In fact, I had heard grandpa from my grandma’s hut, saying: “beati, dalu nnọ nwane kem na ego inyee mii- Beatrice my sister, thank you for the money you gave me”. How the villagers shortened Aunty Beatrice’s name to ‘Beati’ is strange. We left to Lagos on the 17th October. We first went to Enugu to get vehicle to Lagos at Peace Mass Transit, Emene. The Toyota Siena left Emene around 10am. We went through Ninth Mile Corner, where Aunty Beatrice bought ‘ọkpa’ and soya milk for us. Then we went through Awka and Onitsha. I had a better view of the River Niger, and the never completed second Niger Bridge. As the vehicle cruised through ụmụnede, I slept off. When I woke up, we were already at the Peace Park, Ojuelegba Lagos. Aunty Beatrice had boarded bus, Molue, to Ajegunle where she lived. I had wondered how Aunty Beatrice heard ‘Ajegunle’, when the conductors were actually saying things like ‘aiyegule, gule gule’. May be she understood speaking in tongues. As Pastor Eds wife did. We got to Ajegunle, Baale Street, around 10pm, and the roads are as busy as 6pm in Sabongeri Market. Shops were still open. People were smoking almost at every corner when we walked through an entrance to Amukoko. It is difficult to remember everything that happed that night we got to Aunty Beatrice’s house, including when we met her fiancée in bed with another woman, completely naked. Including how Aunty Beatrice stabbed the man on his left leg, and the woman also. They ran away in the pool of blood. I had fainted. Another horrible scene. But that action endeared me to Aunty Beatrice. “I would stab any man who dares cheat on me, just like Aunty Beatrice had done”, I murmured as I took my bath. I lived with Aunty Beatrice for two months. I had discovered that she had no skill. She had no makeup studio as she had told Pa Adindu, my Grandfather. But she was rich. Has a Toyota Camry. Many men visited. But, there is this one particular man that his visits were always brief and huge amount of money is usually dropped at Aunty Beatrice’s center table. Each time he came, Aunty Beatrice will hand him over a girl and he dropped a bag filled with naira notes inside. Aunty Beatrice had told me that he is a traveling agent and he works at Nigerian Embassy in Canada. That was when she convinced me that the man, Mr. Patrick, will help me, as he has accepted to take me to Europe to make money and attend the best university in the world.