For several years, she searched unsuccessfully for a man to call her own amid pressure from her mother to get married because age was not...
Her desperation heightened when her bosom friend, Veronica , kissed goodbye to spinsterhood in an elaborate ceremony that remained fresh in her memory.
On a business trip sometime in February 2011 , she
encountered an alluring young man with whom she later fell in love . A
reserved, handsome stranger who exuded a romantic charm that was
shrouded in mystery swept her off her feet.
Beginning of trouble
Expectedly , her parents were full of joy when she
arrived her village on a Saturday evening to commence the traditional
marriage rites , but payment of the bride price was defered because she
was already pregnant and the tradition forbade such. Notwithstanding ,
they returned to Lafia, where they settled down and cohabited as a
couple for over five years.
A few months after presenting her heartthrob to her
parents at Lokobo village in Keana Local Government Area of Nasarawa
State , she was delivered of a baby boy, a development that further
lifted her soul and strengthened their bond . Within a period of five
years , she also had two miscarriages , which she believed, was an act
of God.
Unraveling the mystery man
Suddenly, in March , this year , she discovered that for
almost six years, she had been living with a dead man who she called
her husband , the father of her child .
It sounds like a fairy tale , but it ’ s true .
This is the story of 39 -year -old Angela Tyoor Agber , a boisterous woman of Tiv extraction resident in Lafia.
She is yet to recover from the shock , after an
unscheduled visit by two guests to their home on Obi road , on the
outskirts of Lafia, blew the veil off her ghost marriage . He
disappeared since that day with her four- year- old son , Joseph Jnr.,
to a world unknown , leaving her in sorrow and fear.
The bubble burst when Angela , who sells oranges ,
wanted to rent a shop at a plaza located close to the Lafia-Makurdi
Roundabout to expand her business . As part of the conditions, the
property owner , Alhaji Musa Usman , requested to meet her husband
ostensibly to ensure she was a responsible woman.
Unfortunately, her supposed 42 -year -old husband , “
Barrister ” Tyopenda Joseph , was too busy to meet Usman , who decided
to visit the couple at home on the fateful day.
He was accompanied by a mason , Mr .Targba Iortim , whom
Usman had contracted for a building project . Iortim , also a Tiv from
Taraba State , had joined Usman in Lafia for a trip to Abuja. But Usman
decided to meet Angela ’s husband before embarking on the journey.
He drove to the couple’ s home without prior notice in
company with the mason , unknown to him that Iortim was acquainted with
Angela ’s husband at Andole village in Kashak Local Government Area of
Taraba State.
Angela had barely ushered the visitors into the sitting room when the unexpected happened.
Iortim was jolted when her husband emerged from the
bedroom to meet his guests . There was pin -drop silence as Joseph ,
popularly known as Big Joe while alive , seemed to have frozen on seeing
one of his visitors. Moments later , Iortim reportedly summoned courage
and hailed him by his nickname, and then, added a shocker : “ Big Joe ,
but you are no more , why are you here ”? The response was a thunderous
sound ; when Angela and her guests recovered from the shock , her
husband and child had vanished.
Shock and disbelief
She collapsed and went blank . After being revived, she
was told her husband had died over 11 years ago, precisely December 2005
, in an auto crash on Takum road in Taraba State . His body, which was
badly mangled , was buried same month in his village . Four months after
, members of his family were wiped out during a clash between farmers
and Fulani herdsmen in the state when his village was completely razed .
Iortim , who said he attended Joseph ’ s burial , gave horrendous
details of the event .
Angela eventually pulled herself together and briskly
packed her belongings out of her “ matrimonial home ” . Consumed by fear
, she has relocated to Lokobo , her village , far away from Lafia where
she had toiled since 2007 and barely savoured her blossoming trade in
oranges . She has now realized why everything about Joseph was
enigmatic; why she neither saw nor heard about members of his family and
friends , why he rarely spoke of his past, beyond the fact that he
hailed from Kashak Local Government in Taraba State , and his family
perished during an invasion of his village by suspected Fulani herdsmen .
Strange behaviour
Though they lived in a secluded area on the outskirts of
Lafia, Angela never suspected anything about her husband who told her
he was a legal practitioner and relocated from Taraba State as a result
of communal crises . Strangely , he vehemently opposed to enrolling
Joseph Jnr., their only child in school even when he was aged four .
While her son whom she described as a lively and gentle boy did not
exhibit any strange behaviour, her husband was withdrawn and often spoke
about death , which unsettled her.
Each time I complained about his quietness, he tells me
that he was thinking about his people who died back home , and that he
would join them someday. Most times , he talked about his terrible
dreams , how water surrounded him while he was going to a farm . There
was a day he asked me how I would feel if he slept one day and didn ’t
wake up ; there was a day he told me he had a dream that Joseph Jnr. ,
our son, died and was buried . In all the years we spent together, he
never attended a church service even for once ; he had no friends.
On the day he went to my village for our introduction ,
two young men and a woman accompanied us; he told me one of the men was
his uncle who came from Kaduna , while the other was his friend from
Makurdi. He said the woman was with us to represent his mother and was a
relation from Makurdi.
Since then, I had not seen any of them after they
accompanied him to my village , but we sometimes talk only on his mobile
phone. When I was delivered of my son, my mother visited and spent some
days with us , but none of those people came . Whenever I raised the
issue, he gave excuses . There was a time he promised taking me to his
village in Taraba, but he later reneged on the grounds that herdsmen had
taken over their community and I became afraid.
About two years before my shocking find, he kept
travelling and hardly stayed around. All along , he gave me the
impression that his village had been razed completely by the herdsmen
and because of the stories we hear from there , I was convinced . I
never knew I was married to a dead man.
Spiritual help
It’ s a cruel fate for Angela which members of her
family had resolved not to make public , as they seek spiritual help to
cleanse her of any evil spell.
Following a tip off by a relation of an arrangement for
her to take sanctuary in a church led by a female prayer warrior at
Otukpo , Benue State , our correspondent laid siege to a spot.
On Wednesday, last week , the effort paid off as
Saturday Sun met Angela in company of her uncle , Anodohumba Adzor , as
they embarked on the journey en route Otukpo . It was a horrifying
encounter as she narrated how she got hooked to a ghost marriage , and a
dark cloud of uncertainty that has enveloped her . She narrated :
How we met
“ In 2007 , I relocated from my village to Lafia with
the assistance of Veronica , a close friend who sold oranges . Since I
wasn ’t educated and couldn’t farm , my late father raised a sum of
N6000 for me and encouraged me to set up a business . I joined my friend
in the orange business which made me travel frequently to purchase the
fruit at interior villages in Konshisha , Ushongo and Gboko areas of
Benue State where they are cultivated in large quantity and cheap.
“ My mother did not give her blessing to the business I
was doing; she felt since I couldn’t engage in farming , I should marry
and settle down for whatever business I wanted to do in my husband ’ s
house . My father didn ’t send me to school , because he was opposed to
sponsoring the education of a female child . So , my mother was against
my stay in Lafia alone ; she wanted me get married and complained about
it each time I went to the village . Though , I had several boyfriends
in Lafia, none was ready to marry me. They were only interested in
having sex, but my mother kept pressurizing me, more so , when my friend
, Veronica got married . Due to the pressure , I also became desperate
to marry , but could not find the right man .
“ In February , 2011 , I was returning from a business
trip to Konshisha via Makurdi en route Lafia. On that fateful day , I
boarded a taxi at Makurdi to Lafia with about six sacks of oranges which
filled up the back seats . The driver charged N2 , 500 as my fare and
my load and as I pleaded with him to collect N2000 , a young man in
black suit who was seated at the front, offered to make up the balance
of N500 so that we could move immediately ; he said he was in a hurry
for an appointment in Lafia.
“ As we commenced the journey , he started a
conversation with me; he probed into my life and when he realized that
both of us were of the Tiv ethnic group , he changed to our language so
that the driver , who was Hausa, would not understand our discussion .
He identified himself as Barrister Tyopenda Joseph, hailed from Taraba
State, and said he had just relocated to Lafia after being displaced by
herdsmen/ farmers clashes in Taraba which consumed his entire family .
He said he was starting life afresh in Lafia, and we exchanged contacts .
Eventually , we started an affair which led to marriage within a short
period.
Before then , he lived in a lonely area on Obi road; he
told me how all his family members were killed in an attack on his
village . It was sympathetic and based on the kind of stories he told
me, I didn ’ t bother anymore to probe into his roots in Taraba, though
he told me he hailed from Kashak . At this point , we were deeply in
love. He proposed marriage so that he could settle down properly , and
that was the first time a man would propose to marry me.
Since that was what I had long awaited , I did not give
it a second thought to investigate him further, at least , within Lafia.
I was already spending most of my nights in his house . I leave home
early in the morning for my business and return late in the evening .
Whenever I returned, he would tell me he had also just arrived home ,
and I believed everything he told me. He regularly assisted me with
money for my business ; really showed me love, and I loved him
passionately . I was ready to do everything to please him , and one
thing that made me give him my heart was that he satisfied me sexually ,
the way no man had done since I lost my virginity .
Seven months into our relationship, I became pregnant
and he gladly accepted to shoulder the responsibility . All along , I
had wanted to marry because my only friend had married and I had gone an
extra mile to make my dream a reality . He was about 42 years. I took
him to my parents who were happy , particularly my mother .
A forum of family members and elders of the village was
convened , where he was introduced as my husband . He bought drinks and
performed some traditional marriage rites , but the bride price was not
paid instantly because I was pregnant and our tradition forbade
collecting bride price for a pregnant woman . This was in November, 2011
.
He promised to pay the bride price after I was delivered
of the baby . We returned to Lafia and lived in peaceful matrimony . He
was reserved and had no friend . Daily, he left home by 6 am and
returned at about 8 .pm weekdays ; he doesn ’t go out on weekends.
I was delivered of a baby boy in June , 2012 , and
thereafter, had two miscarriages . Throughout the period of our marriage
, he did not go back to the village to pay the bride price as he
earlier promised . He kept giving excuses , but my family exercised
patience with him because he catered for them ; he solved every problem
to which his attention was drawn.
Our son behaved normal; he was a gentle boy always
comfortable wherever you kept him . But one strange thing his father did
was that he never allowed me to enroll him in school ; he warned me not
to enroll him in Lafia as he was planning to relocate to Abuja where he
would attend a good school . My son was four years old at that time . I
felt bad and reported the matter to my mother , but she told me I
should allow my husband do what he desired for his son.
Sometime in March , 2017 , I wanted to rent a shop at a
plaza along Lafia/ Makurdi Roundabout to expand my business . The
property is owned by one Alhaji Musa Usman who requested to see my
husband before letting the shop to me. I told him how busy my husband
was , but he insisted and instead , offered to visit our home on a
Saturday . He said he was travelling to Abuja same day for a business
trip that would take him a month. I forgot to tell my husband about
Alhaji ’s visit and the man came with a mason , a Tiv man who relocated
from Taraba State to Makurdi who knew my husband while he was alive and
attended his funeral when he died.
That was when my world crashed like a pack of cards. I
had no inkling my husband had died before , but I later believed because
if it wasn’ t true, he wouldn ’t vanish with his son; it ’s true . I’m
short of words to express how I feel , but have to accept my fate as an
act of God. It is shocking , because we had come a long way and now ,
the man has gone.
Friend corroborates
Iortim was emphatic on his claims and linked our
correspondent with Mathew Kpeber , his (Joseph ’s ) close friend in
Taraba who had also relocated to Makurdi , for a confirmation. When
contacted on his mobile phone, he confirmed Joseph died over a decade
ago.
I used to ride one of his commercial motorcycles in
Taraba, but we fell apart after we had issues over remittance of
proceeds . He died in an accident on Takum road , though I didn ’ t
attend his burial because I had a surgery at that time and was on
admission in a hospital . But I know that Big Joe was dead .
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