Good morning friends. I am reporting live from Ondo state, Nigeria. This early morning, I had to wake up early to join my friends to attend a wedding ceremony here. The journey took us about four hours to arrive at the venue. Believe me, it is good to travel. Culture is dynamic and peculiar from one place to another.
First, we experienced some funny scenes along our way to the venue. The Nigerian police have upgraded. Yeah, you heard me well. The police have upgraded on how to collect bribes from motorists. The new style is sharp. Only a watchful passenger or commuter can notice. Since I am reporting it, it means I am smart. Go ahead and give me a round of applause.
The officer stretched his hands into the car and rested on the frame of the car, then the driver (usually commercial bus drivers) gave an amount of money to the officer and sped off from the scene.
I also noticed that the next vehicle was not asked to stop. The officer who has collected the bribe from the driver pulls back with his tight fist to keep the said money somewhere around the checkpoint. Between Ijebu-Ode and Ore, before we negotiated a bend, there were over ten police checkpoints. All these checkpoints are out to extort drivers and commuters. My brother, country hard. That ought not to be an excuse to be involved in criminality.
It was difficult to identify the new method adopted by the police. I couldn't identify until after the sixth checkpoint when I became more observant of the whole procedure. Seriously, the Nigerian police officers are smart. And working hard with little or no materials. The so-called corruption has become a mundane issue that has to be looked into with serious attention before the whole system collapses.
Alright!!
Away from the police palava. We arrived at the wedding venue and everything was set.
A Nigerian wedding is not complete without paying a dowry. The groom has to come with his family to the bride's family after they have agreed to marry themselves as husband and wife, then the traditional rites are settled. A list of what the bride's family requests for their daughter to be handed in marriage would have been issued to the groom's family.
At this point, when all rites had been paid fully, there was one part that almost caused commotion. A clause in the list that ought to be fulfilled is that the groom should work on the bride's father's farm for seven days.
Here is the Commotion
The father refused to receive money in place of the groom working on his farm. In modern times, some aspects of the traditional list can be replaced with money. A typical example is a portion that states that a huge leg of antelope is to be given to the mother of the bride, meaning that the groom should go hunting to get such, it is a difficult task because the government has placed a ban on hunting wildlife.
The bride's father insisted that the groom must work on his farm and that no amount of money could be used to replace that. It is here that I got to know that money is not everything and that some people are not bothered about money, all that matters to such a person is respect for culture. In this case, wisdom is needed.
I had to call the groom aside and ask him to say to his would-be father-in-law that he would work on his farm so long that he had been accepted as his son-in-law.
Finally, that singular speech solved all the brouhaha about the farming thing and whatnot. The father-in-law agreed to let go of the seven-day thing and handed his daughter to my friend in marriage.
We headed straight to the registry where they tied the knot legally.
The registrar did not waste too much time telling stories, he went straight to the matter of the day because other couples wanted to tie the know today.
One important message for the couple from the registrar is that they should not deny themselves of romantic intimacy. The wife was handed the wedding certificate and a closing prayer to bring the event to a close.