A foremost Fulani leader Uthman Dan Fodio once said: conscience is an open wound, only truth can heal it. Each time I reflect on that statement, I wonder what may have made him make that statement that has now become a foremost quote. I wonder too if I will be able to forgive myself and if the man I would like to call Mr Ben will forgive me too. Let me tell you my reasons for saying this.
In 2003 Mr Ben give me a kind advice that benefited me a lot and this made me close to him and his family. Unknown to him I had known him since 1987 when I met him in a tensed situation in a neighboring state. We had gone there for a religious program and there happened to be a disagreement between two people, Mr Ben chose to take sides and reacted angrily threatening to go physical on one of those involved. I was shocked because of his display of anger at such a place after all he had been taught at the religious program, from that day, I concluded that he is a very temperamental and unreasonable man. When I met him again after 16 years I reminded him of that incident, he was deeply ashamed and apologized for his actions.
A few years later Mr Ben had some issues with his wife and she always complained that he beats her. Due to my closeness to the family I was privy to some of these reports and each time I listen to the wife, it will be a case of one day one horrible story. As the reports were pouring in, I and a few friends believed the wife and who wouldn't believe it after being aware of Mr Ben's angry past and he had displayed a furious disposition on some occasions recently. We often tried to talk to Mr Ben about these allegations but he will deny them, he gets angry and disappointed that we believe the things his wife was alleging. He will admit that he spoke angrily but that he does not beat up his wife. We asked to know what the issues were and he said that his wife was cheating on him. To us that was laughable because the wife is seen by many as a hard-working mother of three and as a virtuous woman.
Years passed but the relationship never improved and since there was no evidence to make people believe him he was seen as a hardened and unreasonable man. Things got so bad one night that by the morning his wife moved out of the house. This was based on the suggestions given by some ofherr friends who told her that her life was in danger if she continues to endure maltreatments from her husband.
Everyone wondered how she will cope now that she has left her matrimonial home, besides the cost of renting an accommodation was on the high side and we all wished she could afford a decent accommodation. Mrs Ben was able to get a place to live,but guess what? On living her matrimonial home she headed straight to live with a man whose wife was working in another city. Everyone got the shock of their lives including me as we wondered how she will move in to live with a man to whom she's not related to. The shock did not end there.
Mrs Ben left with all her belongings except her phone, her husband had stumbled on the evidence he needed while going through her phone and so he siezed it.
When he showed us the contents on her phone, lo and behold it was full of erotic messages between her and a man we all knew. The man was different from the one she was now living with. So, all through the years we have believed that Mr Ben was accusing his wife wrongly and was a wife beater. It was in some of those messages that we realized that she has terminated some pregnancies unknown to her husband and that she would lie against him as a way to restrain him from reacting.
Although Mr Ben later remarried after some years but I hope that he will be kind enough to forgive us for seeing him as a terrible man. One thing is clear: no matter how far a lie can travel the truth is always constant and it will always prevail.
