Monday, 7 March 2022

WHY NO MAN CAN CLAIM A CHILD BORN OR CONCEIVED BEFORE PAYMENT OF BRIDE PRICE IN NNEWI

Chief Anayo Nwosu
The new wave of able young men going around and impregnating marriageable ladies out of wedlock and brandishing Baby Papa's title will never gain ground in Nnewi. If you have such a plan with an Nnewi girl, perish the thought as your labour shall be in vain. The seed you planted could germinate, but you will never reap the fruits. Even if the baby is your carbon copy, you can never claim him. If you like, bring DNA evidence, it makes no sense to my people.
 
Mr. John Nlalikor, a Lagos big boy who impregnated Miss Ukwunko, later found out that the boy he thought was his was a gift to Ukwunko's family. He had come to claim the product of his illegal mining of the gold beneath the hips of an Nnewi daughter. Stupid boy! The shouts of "I cannot leave here without my son" by Mazi Nlalikor released the bottled anger in the young brothers of Ukwunko as he nearly lost his left eye to blows.
 
In my town, a child born outside wedlock belongs to the girl's family and is ranked the last child of the mother's siblings. A love child bears the mother's surname and is never discriminated against in Nnewi. There is nothing like a bastard in the Nnewi lexicon. The value we place on the gift of a child is reflected in our common names like Nwaka (child is supreme), Nwakaego (child is greater than money), Nwamaka (child is beautiful), Nwadinaume (child can energize), Nwadimkpa(child is essential), etc. In fact, royal families like mine adighi eke nwanyi n'afo ime (i.e. does not proceed to contract a marriage if we find out that our daughter is pregnant). The suitor must wait until the child is born before a marital process could continue.
 
If you are not ready to marry but desire to be eating elders' food, you can beat this trap of working for free by visiting the girl's parents and depositing some drinks stating your intention to marry their daughter. If the drinks were accepted and you did not pay the bride price before you inflated their daughter's stomach, you can claim the baby but after the bride price. If you never deposited drinks nor paid our daughter's bride price (which has been reduced to sixty naira), and you are planning to answer a Baby Papa to our child, you are at a loss; you would have worked for us for free.
 
Nnewi is also a fair people. No son born outside by our own bad boys is allowed to mount the throne as an obi or head of the extended family or umunna or the town unless the father (i.e. the culpable Nnewi man) can prove that he married the child's mother; otherwise, he too would have worked in vain. The child can claim Nnewi citizenship just like those with permanent residence in the USA but with limited rights. The proof of evidence required in this case includes bringing a witness to verify that the Nnewi father performed the marital rites on the child's mother, usually from another town or tribe.

The date of birth of a child in Nnewi is when the father (not the mother) introduces the child to his father's Umunna or kinsmen. No child’s date of birth predates the day the father married the mother. This explains why many first sons or heads of families in Nnewi are younger than some of their younger brothers.

 
Therefore, if you are a lady and are busy having children for an Nnewi man who is yet to introduce you to his people as a wife, thinking that those offsprings will partake in our great Nnewi heritage, forget it. It will never happen! The Nnewi man, too, has worked for your people in vain. It gets complicated if the man begets more children after yours through a woman he pays her bride price. Any day he decides to bring you and your children home, that very day your children are introduced to his kinsmen becomes their birthday in Nnewi. It has a serious implication in seniority determination for inheritance purposes.
 
A popular name Ikeaputanwa in Nnewi means that you could use your power to corner and mine the golden hips of our girls or women, but you have no power to claim the offsprings of that relationship. All should know that if you sleep with a married woman from Nnewi and impregnate her, you can never claim the product even if she is no longer living with her husband. The child or children belong(s) to the man who paid the bride price even if he has died.
 
Therefore, ensure that your girlfriend's bride price paid otherwise you are working for charity. Also, if you are in love with a widow of an Nnewi man, ensure that the bride price paid on her head has been returned before you start planting your seed; otherwise, you are working in vain or are siring children for her deceased husband. Experience has shown that those children who were harvested from charity farms become more successful than those their birth fathers later beget in their subsequent unions.
 
If you are a young man and plan to dance Flavour's "Asa Nwababy" song with an Nnewi girl hoping to answer Baby Papa, perish the idea. With an Nnewi woman, you get what you paid for.

No comments:

Post a Comment