THE FOOLISH BEST ADVICE

I had lost my father not up to a week, the wound was still fresh and the pain was as that of a drop of pepper in one's eyes. I had not been in that condition before. Borrowing from the words of queen Elizabeth I can say it was indeed an anus horribies for me. My mood and that of a ram on salah morning was not too different. I had sat in the living room trying to draft burial programme, my mom was in the bedroom when two women knocked the door to console her. Both of them were widows, I had alarmed my mother in her bedroom that people were looking for her, then I excused them in the living room to the visitors' bedroom. That was because there was a table and some rubber chairs in the room that I could sit and rest my book on to draft the burial programme. I had not intended to eavedropped, never! I was so focused on what I was doing, then one of the women began to talk to my mother as I eavedropped. "I am not here to condole you, I have lost my husband years ago, if someone is to console the other, then you should be the one consoling me. Mine is over five years now, I am pained than you are; you just joined us so if you are crying, then what do you expect from us? Kill ourselves? I'm here to give you an advice as an experience widow that de toon num ga ( don't inherit husband). Don't expect help from anybody, your helpers are your children. U too num ior a yav a we zan zan a u wasen we shior ( if you inherit husband different people will sleep with you without helping you). When I lost my husband different people came to me that they will take care of I and my children if I allow them to covet me, unknowingly I did in vain. different People had slept with me all in the name that they were solution to my problems yet look at me, have I looked like someone who has gotten solution to her problems? I have not seen that solution. If anyone had given me this advice I am giving you I wouldn't have fallen". This is called the foolish best advice because it was meaningless to me as of then but now the best. Most Nigerian villages have been practicing an abominable act of taking their dead brothers' wives in bed, or forcing their late brothers'wives to remarry them. You see people fighting over their dead brothers'wives to a point one would be tempted to say they are the ones that sponsored transportation for their brothers to embark on a journey of no return, so that they will covet their wives. Situations where some widows refuse engaging in such abominable act it becomes battle, properties whom they are heir apparent of are sometimes seized, they are often time enslaved and tormented spiritually yet we sit and watch as if it is normal. You see them shamefully fighting over their dead brothers' wives as if they were praying for them to die, you see people who cannot take care of their wives nor send their children to school fighting to covet a dead person's wife as if it is an achievement. Research has shown that many widows in Nigeria are passing through alot in the hands of some African Semi gods, If you come across anybody maltreating a widow kindly be of help, let's say no to widow enslavement If not when we are no more same act will be vented on our wives.