Chokehold

I had a pastor friend

He worked as a consultant for many multinational companies and made a lot of money

He bought a house in Magodo, built another one in his hometown, got married to the daughter of a judge from Ibadan

Had four children

When his wife clocked 50, he bought her a car

A Toyota Prado

His wife sold the car and gave the money to her younger brother who had been running an ailing business for over 20 years

This Pastor got angry and told his wife never to touch any of the other cars in the house

He told her to hitch buses and bikes around the city

The wife did this for a month

Church members saw her jumping buses and riding Okada

Many called the attention of the husband to it

Whispers started in the church

How can the Pastor’s wife be jumping buses?

How can a pastor treat his wife with so much disdain?

What sort of example is this pastor setting?

The news filtered to the pastor

How many people would he explain to that in their over twenty years of marriage his wife had constantly doled out his money to her family members who in turn didn’t make anything of note out of such gifts or acts of generosity?

They had a school in Ibadan that he built from scratch, it was his first side hustle when he was still a young man working as an engineer at the Airport

When he had to travel to the UK for a one-year course, he left the school for his wife to manage

His wife gave the school to one of her younger sisters living in Ibadan to manage

The sister sold the school and used the fund to relocate with her husband and two children

When he got back home, his wife’s excuse was, “I don’t want them to see us as blessed people who don’t want to help others”

He had known his wife to be simple but that took it to the heights for him

He started other businesses without informing or carrying his wife along

He realized she simply did not understand how life works

A few years later, his wife said she wanted to retire from her teaching job and start

a business

She came up with importing goods from China in containers and distributing such to retailers all over Nigeria

She knew the business

He invested 50 million Naira

She employed 5 people to man her warehouse in Ikeja

She got two drivers

Had an office in Oshodi

All the employees were members of her family

She just wanted to keep them engaged

She also paid well

Within a year, the business was dead

The drivers wrecked the buses, the manager of the warehouse made deals that enriched his pocket, and the distributors sold stuff and kept the fund

Who were they going to arrest?

Would he lock up her relatives?

The money went down the drain

Who would he tell his story to?

He told his wife she could have another car

Just pick one of the other cars

The wife picked the Ford Truck that was given to him as a gift by the former

church they pastored

The car was brand new

The wife employed a driver, another one of her relatives

Within a month, the brand-new car began to develop faults every other day

Brake today, stiff steering tomorrow, it is consuming fuel stories, and so on

He called his wife’s attention to the development

His wife said she knew what she was doing

The driver was obviously in a lot of debt and had to lie a lot to ease off the debts in bits

One day the driver went to Ibadan to deliver something to the wife’s mother

All she got was a phone call

from Iyaganku police station

The driver went to report that the car had been stolen from where he parked it

The wife called her husband

The husband laughed

The car had a tracker in it

The husband called some private security consultants attached to his office, they activated the tracker and located the vehicle in Benin City

With the help of the police, they arrested the driver

It turned out that the driver sold the car for 650,000 Naira

A car that at the time was worth at least 8 million Naira

The husband locked the driver up

The wife and her relatives came begging

He released the driver after two weeks

One year later, the wife’s mother died in Ibadan

We went for the burial (The man invited everybody from church and his business associates)

It was a massive burial ceremony, with AyanJesus and Tope Alabi ministering in songs

A lot of money was spent

Relatives flew in from all over the world

The night after the burial, armed robbers came to visit the man’s residence in Ibadan

Their target was the money the man and his wife were sprayed during the party

The attack was unsuccessful

Security personnel

Arrested one of the robbers

The robber turned out to be the same driver that sold the car just a year before

He was angry that as rich as his sister and her husband were, they arrested him for selling their car

By this time the husband was done dealing with his wife’s

relatives and he told her so

He said her mother was the only reason he had exercised caution over the years and since her mother had now died if he saw any of her relatives around him or his house, he would arrest such

The wife couldn’t say a word in protest.

People generally

need to be told where the line is

If you don’t tell them, they will cross it over and over again

I remember traveling to my hometown recently

We had a meeting till 11 pm

When the meeting was done, I was in a hurry to get back to my hotel

I got to the car park and my driver & car were gone

I called the driver and asked what happened

He said my cousin asked him to drop his wife and children at his house

Wow!

How in the world did my cousin commandeer my car and my driver?

On what planet is this done?

Everybody just told me sorry

Entitlement mentality is a sickness

9 am this morning!