is threatening my
happiness, my daughters and probably
the future generations yet unborn.
I married my husband just like every other young woman
and we both looked forward to a blissfull future with our
children. Contrary to the belief of some people that I would
have problems bearing children, through God's mercy, my
three children came few years into our union.
A lot of people believed we would have to wait on the Lord
for the blessing of the fruit of the womb as that was the
tradition in my husband's family, but God singled us out
and we had our children without any hitch.
With these, our joy was complete and we never envisaged
that these children would be a source of discord in our
family now.
I am a trained nurse with a B.Sc in Nursing from Glasgow,
Scotland and my husband is also a trained professional
engineer. We both had good jobs until my husband lost his
job and getting another good well paid job became
difficult. We both decided that I should travel out of the
country to practise and when I am stabilised, he would join
me with the children.
As luck would have it, I secured a good job and no sooner
had I got to England that my husband secured one too. We
had it all, which was what we thought. I would have
returned immediately, but since my being over there made it
convenient for my family to visit on holidays and my
children were not too young, I stayed on my job and
sincerely my husband did a good job taking care of the
children.
The summer my first daughter turned 18, it was my turn to
visit home. When I arrived, I noticed a tensed atmosphere
between my daughters and their father. I forgot to mention
the fact that I am blessed with three children, two girls and
a boy, the boy is the last.
Initially, I thought it was the adolescent – parent's issue, so
I ignored it. But when I noticed that apart from the tensed
atmosphere, my first daughter sometimes would be
outrightly rude to her father, I demanded to know what was
going on. This became a matter of concern because, both of
them were very close and my husband addresses her as Iya
Mi (My mother) because of the uncanny resemblance she
has with my mother-in-law, so I wondered what could have
happened.
I tried several times to get my daughters to speak with me
and tell me why they treated their father with such
contempt, but all they had to say was always "talk to your
husband." On a fateful day, I had to call my husband's
attention to what I saw and asked him what was going on.
He told me it was nothing he couldn't handle and that I
shouldn't worry myself. He, however, told me that my
eldest daughter was keeping bad company in school and she
was trying to draw her younger sister into it.
Based on this, he decided to bench them, and placed
embargo on outing and parties. He dropped them in school
and made sure that whatever he was doing he created time
to pick them from school. On days that he had to travel, he
made plans to get them home. This, of course, did not go
down well with them and he wasn't ready to bend the rules.
I was happy because I knew it was something positive and
because of their age, I knew this wouldn't go down well
with them. I then ignored their attitude until few days that I
wanted to travel back to the UK. I called my eldest daughter
first to speak with her. When I raised my observations and
my husband's response with her, her reply threw me off
balance.
My daughter told me that daddy did not want her sister and
herself to go out because he was having sex with both of
them. I thought I didn't hear her well. I asked her to repeat
what she said, she repeated herself again and asked me to
confirm from her sister.
I summoned my younger daughter immediately and she said
the same thing. My life crashed that very moment and I
asked if they could repeat what they told me before their
father. They said they would. When he came back from the
office, I sought an audience with and told him what the girls
said. He said I was joking and said I should call the girls. I
did and they repeated what they told me.
My husband denied vehemently and the girls insisted that it
was happening. I was confused and I sought the counsel of
our pastor, he called my daughters and they told him the
same thing. I was confused and I didn't know who to
believe. This shattered my world and my husband became
something else. He was hurt that I of all people refused to
believe him.
I made arrangement and took my children back to the UK
with me. Although it cost me a lot moneywise, I couldn't
leave my children with him any longer, a lot of things
changed for him. He lost all his friends, even his family
members abandoned him. People alluded a lot of reasons he
would sleep with his daughters. Some said he did it for
spiritual purpose. Some said he was using them for money
ritual and I also had a reason to think that his fortune
changed just after I left, automatically, he must have used
my girls.
I didn't want to have anything to do with him any longer.
He tried to make me see that it was the devil's machination
to destroy our family, but I was past caring. I raised my
children alone, although he offered to help several times,
but I didn't want to have anything to do with him. I learnt
later that he remarried years after we left him. He became
ill with psychiatry problem and he had to be remanded in a
home.
My son cared about him and they were always
communicating. As soon as he finished his education, he
came back to Nigeria to stay close to his father and it was
through him that we learnt of all that was happening to him.
My problems started when it was time for my daughters to
get married and they couldn't find suitors. It wasn't even an
issue of having relationships and experiencing
disappointments. They never had dates. Initially, I didn't
see the situation as a problem because I felt they were
experiencing psychological problems as a result of what
happened during their teenage years.
They went through different counselling and other
therapies, but all these didn't help. One of my friends
suggested that we seek spiritual help when my first daughter
turned 36 years. We sought spiritual assistance from our
pastor in London, a white man. After prayers, he said my
daughters were suffering from a curse and they needed
deliverance. Probably because he was not explicit, we went
through several deliverance sessions, but the situation didn't
change.
My elder sister asked us to come back home. After visiting
several pastors, we went to see one of the popular
pentecostal pastors in the country. After prayers, he asked
my daughters to confess their sins so that they could be free
from the curse they placed on themselves. They denied
knowledge of what the pastor said.
We left but their situation remained the same. Another
friend of mine took us to another church, this time a
spiritual one. After prayers, the spiritual head told my
daughters that they had destroyed someone's marital bliss
and someone who wasn't supposed to cry over them shed
bitter tears because of what they did. He told us that the
only way out is for them to seek the person out, confess
their sins and ask for forgiveness.
My first daughter started to deny again, but her sister burst
into tears and said she would confess. She said they both
lied that their father did not have sex with them. She said
her sister asked her to collaborate her story years back
because their father did not give them the freedom to do
what they wanted.
I was devastated by their confession. The man of God asked
them to confess and let everyone who heard what they
accused their father of know that they lied. Some of these
people are dead. Apart from this, their father is mentally ill
and cannot identify with his environment. Would he be able
to understand and forgive them? I am yet to come to terms
with why they destroyed all of us. Right now, I have
suffered a partial stroke because I still cannot fathom why.
Where do we start from? My life is full of regrets.
Probably, I should have trusted my husband, but as at that
time, I couldn't have done otherwise. Please, help me.
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