By Yetunde Arebi

As I listened to Gloria’s story, my mind raced back several years, over 20 plus years ago, in fact. The location was Aguda, Surulere, at a cell church of one of the giant Pentecostal churches in Nigeria. The building next door to mine, housed a cell church and it belonged to my aunt who had given a portion of the compound to the organisation for use.

So, members of this unit met regularly here to listen to tape recordings from their mother church and offer prayers to God almost on a daily basis. Among the members was an Igbo couple who also lived in the neighbourhood. They were almost like Siamese twins, always together and appeared sweet and lovely too. But rumours soon had it that they were living in sin as they were not married and had never even performed any marriage rites, both in their village in Eastern Nigeria and Lagos.

Naturally, their church leaders would have no nonsense of such and so they were mandated to correct their sin. In their church, you need no lavish spending to conduct a wedding. The church could even perform one at next to zero cost to a couple who desired to be together but could not afford the cost of the ceremonies. The most important factor of any marriage contract was the decision of the intending couple and the consent of their parents and the presence of the Holy Bible as witness to the ceremony. All other things were irrelevant.

So, the couple were mandated to formalise their relationship if they wanted to remain members of the church. Besides, they did not appear to lack the funds, so, whatever could be holding them back? The couple disclosed to their leaders that living in sin was not by choice but because of the man’s busy schedule, they had never been able to make proper arrangements for going to the village since they met.

Besides, the lady’s mother was dead and the father never cared for her and had disowned her a long time ago. So they were convinced that they could take their time. But the church did not consider this as a big problem and suggested that some elders would accompany the couple to their village to broker peace and allow for the necessary ceremonies to be performed. It was at the village that the truth of the matter was revealed.

The couple were indeed close relatives, close enough for a sexual relationship between them to be considered a taboo and a sacrilege to the land. In fact, as soon as they stepped feet into the village, they were said to have defiled the land and a ritual must be conducted to cleanse it of the evil outcome. The church on hearing this, refused to partake in the taboo and agreed that a cleansing was not only required, the relationship must be brought to an end. The rites were immediately performed and everyone returned to church where the story immediately spread like wild fire.

But to everyone’s surprise, the couple reunited after a few weeks and continued living together as if nothing had happened. The excuse was that the lady was already pregnant and therefore had nowhere to go. Terminating the pregnancy was also not an option and that if God had not approved of the relationship, He would not have blessed them with a child. If the church would not allow them be, then they would stop coming and look for another church. Several months after, the couple hit the neighbourhood top news headlines once more.

They had given birth to a stillbirth baby, dead on arrival. But the main news was that the baby had been a monster, badly developed and looked more like a big reptile. Everyone quickly concluded that it was the gods that were at work because of the sacrilege they were committing against their land, family and people. The couple eventually moved out of the area, most likely to carry on their sin in a new environment.

Looking back, my take is that the lady had taken several steps to terminate the pregnancy unsuccessfully which led to the deformation of the foetus. But then, who is to say that the gods cannot also do it? There were many theories at the time being postulated by people about what really went down with the couple. Some said they met in Lagos and had already fallen in love and living together before they discovered that they were blood relations.

Another had it that they had always known and that it was not their first attempt to perform the cleansing rituals in their village. Additional information filtered around that the lady had in fact run away from home to Lagos to be with her cousin and that the shame of it killed her mother. It was also not their first attempt at formalising their relationship as another church had turned them down in the past before they relocated to Aguda.

Hmm! A weird world, or weird love? Can it be that they were simply helpless about their situation? I can’t tell, because that seems to be the case in Gloria’s story. After 10 years in a childless marriage to a questionable character, Gloria decided to take a walk. And she already got my blessings in addition to several other people’s. Believing she was in a decent, God fearing relationship with a man who had decided to dedicate himself to the teaching of God’s words, Gloria got married Tom, 10 years ago.

It was a relationship that received the blessings of both families, so she had envisaged very little problems from members of her husband’s family especially. More so, they would be living in the world but not of the world, which meant that their vows would last their lifetime. And though she did sense some tension and hostility in the body language and sometimes utterances of one of her sisters-in-law and stepmother-in-law, never could she have guessed in her wildest imagination that there was something more than the ordinary beneath the hostilities.

To her, it was simply the normal step sibling rivalry being aided by a selfish and jealous step mother. All she had to do was avoid them as much as possible once they were married. Gloria was eventually proved wrong. A few weeks after the wedding, she received an August visitor, her stepmother-in-law. She wasted no time, in revealing her mission. To discuss with Gloria on the true situation of things in the family. Her husband and his teenage stepsister were lovers! They had been that way for a couple of years and as a mother, she would not sit back and fold her arms while her daughter is abused and short changed by anyone.

She had come to inform Gloria that her daughter also has a right to stay in the house and would be moving in with them any time soon. Gloria was free to tell anyone she felt like telling, it would not stop them. She said she was lost for words even after the woman’s departure, more so, that her husband had no explanation for all that the woman had said, except to beg for forgiveness and to cover his shame. He promised that everything was in the past and that he had no reason to sleep with the girl again being married to her, a godly and beautiful woman.

Gloria said she had no choice but to agree that the girl move in after much deliberations between them. According to him, the stepmother’s insinuation that it was an ongoing affair was not true. He had since stopped after giving his life to Christ and dedicating himself to His works. He said it was after he stopped that he discovered that his step mother was aware all along that he was sleeping with the girl. Her position at the time was that since he had been doing it, there was not much difference if they stopped. He could carry on and be assured that it would be kept a secret between all three of them for as long as he continued taking care of the girl.

No one, especially their father who believe so much in him, would ever find out. However, things changed as soon as he brought Gloria home and the idea of a marriage was disclosed. His stepmother, convinced he has ruined her daughter, insisted there would be no wedding for him, until her daughter was old enough and settled in her own marriage. After much horse trading, they agreed that the young girl would move in with them and he would continue to be responsible for her until she gets married. His shame was also her shame, Gloria convinced herself.

Besides, under her authority, the girl could be whipped to size she erroneously concluded. So, the girl moved in with them. However, not only was she uncontrollable, after catching her husband in bed twice with the girl, she was forced to accept her situation. And though she only caught them on these two occasion in 10 years, she is convinced that the incestuous relationship was still very strong.

It is not this however that has broken the camel’s back. Gloria, a few weeks ago caught her husband yet again in the arms of a female member of their church. She says she is now convinced that it is not a matter of the devil urging him into such lustful crimes, but he is the devil. She said that despite their many years of praying for the fruit of the womb, she has never given birth to a termed pregnancy as she’d had four miscarriages to date.

She is convinced that her stepmother-in-law and the daughter were responsible for the miscarriages based on the threats of both of them. At 36, she is no longer willing to continue in a fruitless marriage, especially as her sister-in-law has also refused to find herself a husband, years after completing her secondary school and fashion designing training.

I have always considered myself as very vast in human experiences and psychology, especially with relationships because of several years of interaction with people in the course of my writing. Often, on hearing one story, I would have several similar ones to relate it with. But I must confess that this one “fall my hand” as they say. The irony of all these is that this man’s ministry seems to be waxing strong despite all these atrocities. Hmm, na wah! Lets meet here again next Saturday. Do have a wonderful weekend!