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| Chief Anayo Nwosu |
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Dupe and Cynthia appeared to have decoded the real cause of Ifenkili's black
eye, which was very visible, even with her heavy makeup. They were dead sure
that Mazi Ikedimpu would have done it. Their convictions were borne out of
experience. They were both married.
Dupe
would not wait for the meeting to end before she sent an SMS "kpele oo
" to her banker colleague. Ifenkili didn't respond. She rather murmured to
herself "ndi asiri", meaning "tale mongers" and remained
focused and attentive to their branch head's address.
It was
a Monday morning and the first work day of a new month. The branch head, Mrs
Ayo Badmus needed to inoculate her staff with the monthly fear factor, the
fabricated ongoing management performance audit, and the need for all staff to
improve performance or be sacked. Having spoken alone for 2 hours, entertaining
no contributions in a forum that was supposed to be interactive, she ended the
meeting and asked Ifenkili to follow her to her office.
The
branch head was very direct. "What did you do to your husband to warrant
this kind of ferocious beating, that nearly cost you your eyes?" Ifenkili
broke down and cried like a baby. Mrs Badmus felt for her. Ifenkili was her
best performing marketing staff. She ordinarily wouldn't have intervened, owing
to her policy not to get personal with her direct reports, which had worked for
her, but for her likeness for Ify, as she fondly called her. Focusing on the
job, got her the results she wanted.
"Take
down this phone number, she is Shade my cosmetologist. See her now to help you
manage your face, till your wound heals. She will also give you matching
sunshades. You know that your work cannot suffer because you married a
pugilist?" Mrs Badmus joked. But it was a dry joke to Ifenkili.
"If I should advise you, use the same template we use to
analyze prospective bank loan applicants, to check whether your husband is
still the best fit for you. I did mine years ago and took a walk. Our men don't
like ambition and financial independence in a woman. My former husband nearly
killed me before I ran away. Don't tell me the story, I can't judge, you know
all the facts, judge the matter yourself. You are the most intelligent lady I
have ever met. I have not told you this before, but it is true. Resolve the
matter in your favour. I can pay for your one year accommodation if you decide
to quit. The bank can't afford to lose you. Have a nice day!" Mrs Badmus concluded,
expecting no follow up questions.
Mrs
Ayodele Badmus was an authoritarian and also an Assistant General Manager, who
headed a grade A branch. She also supervises three other small branches.
Ifenkili had just resolved the puzzle as to why the woman hated married men.
All her friends were mostly divorced or separated. Ifenkili needed to hitch a
ride to Shade, the cosmetologist with Dupe and Cynthia, who had a marketing
call in Lekki. The bank was yet to purchase a status car for her, following her
promotion to managerial cadre.
Dupe
opened the topic. "Nne na wa oh!" she started. "I know it is money matter. In this recession, no man
would just ignore the earnings of his bank manager wife. I knew he would react
after your promotion from deputy manager to a manager last month. I didn't want
to be beaten ooo. I just tendered my new payslip after the promotion to my
husband and urged him to decide how my salary should be utilized. Thank God the
profit bonus payment is not included in the payslip. That's the only money I
control, but any day he finds out, I will apologize and submit that one too.
There is no shame in doing that. Nobody will kill me for money," Dupe
concluded, caring less if anybody was listening or not.
"Mine was different," Cynthia
said. "It took several beatings and a near loss of
my first pregnancy for me to realize that my husband was dead serious. That was
a man that told me, during our courtship days, that it was a taboo in his home
town for a man to live off a woman. You babes are even better off as your
husbands work and earn money, because mine is an assistant pastor in
pentecostal church. He sees me not as a helpmate but a subordinate. He likes
telling me that he is the head of the family and should be the one doing the
spending. He knows all I earn since he has a mysterious friend in our bank who
tells him what and when we are paid. God will judge him," Cynthia
concluded.
The
stories of her colleagues bewildered Ifenkili because she thought that all was
well with them. She thanked God that her own was not that bad. If the slap was
not so thunderously conveyed with the huge biceps of Ikedimpu her husband,
nobody would have known. "But wait a minute!"
she thought, "could the idiot have slapped
me for the second time if I didn't faint?"
Ego
set in. How would Ifenkili reveal the true cause of her black eye to her
colleagues known for peddling gossips? Never! The whole bank would hear it and
she would become a laughing stock. But she must say something. The black eye is
not a mere pimple.
"I'm
sorry for your ordeals in the hands of your husbands,"Ifenkili
started. "Mine was a bit different. I was attacked by robbers on Falomo
bridge on Saturday, I mean to say Friday, on my way home from work," she
lied. The two other ladies laughed and kept laughing until they reached the
Lekki cosmetologist's office where Ifenkili dropped off. Ifenkili could
recognize Shade. She was one of the judges when Ifenkili won Miss UNILAG
pageant many years ago. The thickness of Shade's make up and strict dieting had
made her look unchanged. She could not lie to Shade. She told her everything.
"Ikedimpu was my first boyfriend and we got married immediately
both of us secured good jobs. I took to banking while he got employed in an oil
firm. It has been so rosy until his company was bought over by the Chinese and
his earnings were halved. He never asked or inquired about what I earned or how
I spent my money, but would always enjoin me to save for the rainy day. He was
the man of the house in words and in deeds, as he always catered for the major
expenses like, the school fees of our two kids, rent and those other things men
do."
"Trouble started when I was promoted to a manager cadre last
month. He called me for a meeting and demanded to know how much savings I had
and how I had been investing my earnings, since he practically bore most of the
family burden. I was convinced that his friends must have advised him to start
tightening up his financial controls on me otherwise he would lose me. I needed
to nip this in the bud before he developed the effrontery to probe
further."
"Madam, in the course of my banking career, I have attended
many courses on how to avoid being pinned down by a difficult bank customer and
on how not to commit to an unfavorable deal. I deployed my skills immediately.
I staged a quarrel, gave my husband a few loads of insults, thinking that would
scare him off, but I was mistaken. This man told me to get prepared on Friday
night, as he needed to catch a sleep."
"At exactly 10pm on Friday last weekend, my husband
reintroduced the topic. Then I knew he was serious. I told him point blank that
real men did not look at their wives' earnings and that he should change job if
he needed to earn more. I don't know if I finished my statement that he was not
my parent, that he didn't pay my school fees and as such had no right
whatsoever to audit my financial affairs, before I felt a bomb explode on my
face. Just one blow and I woke up at St. Nicholas Hospital," Ifenkili ended.
But
she only came to receive good looks management from Shade, not marital advice. Ikedimpu
had begged his beautiful wife, when she regained her consciousness right in the
hospital, for forgiveness and promised not to raise his fingers on her again.
But, he did not promise not to inquire into her finances. She was too afraid to
ask him to include that in his pledge of no-dos. For Ikedimpu, the wound
inflicted on a mad patient in the asylum during treatment, is never a sign of
wickedness but that of love and concern from all.
According
to Ifenkili's husband and those of other high earning career women, the woman
should be accountable to her husband in all things including her financial
state of affairs. Even some pastors supply them with bible quotations to
validate this archaic tendency.
With
the economy, not getting better, many more men are getting more interested in
what their wives earn. Men longer care. They don’t want to behave like their
fathers. It’s going to be a harvest of divorce and separation of hitherto happy
homes. This is in line with the economic theory that happiness or misery of
majority of households is a measure of the economic condition of the country.
anayonwosu@icloud.com
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