By Sunmola Olowookere
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TO say that residents of our neighbourhood are scandalized by the goings on in the home of a deceased neighbour will be an understatement.
Following the death of her husband, residents had noticed with dismay and shock that the widow had begun to exhibit signs of pregnancy despite the fact that she has five kids already.
Her close friends among the women in our neighbourhood were the first to observe this and many believed that it could not be possible for a widow to be pregnant less than a year after her husband”s demise.
However, all doubts were removed as the pregnancy began to grow. It became obvious that she was indeed pregnant. The residents were shocked as they realized that the widow had taken a lover even before her husband’s corpse was cold in the grave. The women murmured, hissed and spit in disdain whenever they saw her coming with her protruding belly.
It got to a point that she could no longer cope with the murmuring and the condemnation. She decided to move to her mother’s village. She could not go to her father’s house because many people there knew about her bereavement and the scandal would only start afresh.
Her dead husband’s family were more shocked and unhappy at the development. After five kids, they found it hard to believe she would still try to have more kids for another man.
Some of them argued that she had probably been having concubines before their brother passed away. Three of her kids that were teenagers had been taken in by her husband’s family for proper care
She moved out of the house along with her two young kids and the family let her be. They began to monitor their brother’s house and held their peace. They also held meetings with the tenants living in some of the rooms.
Not knowing that her husband’s family had established a strong link with the tenants, she brought buyers to purchase the half plot behind the house in the following month. As she was discussing with the potential buyers, one of the tenants had alerted one of the family members who immediately rushed down and called the other members of the family of the development.
As he got there and met them gesticulating on the land. He was livid. He began to shout “Ole! Ole! ” . This alerted the neighbours and people rushed out of their houses to catch the thief who dated to rob in broad daylight. When they got there, they were surprised to see that it was the widow that was been called thief. The man held her buba and told the buyers she brought that if they buy the land from her, they did so at their own peril.
The widow got over her initial shock and shame and began to attack her brother in law. She accused him of trying to snatch her husband’s property from her. Other family members had also gotten there shortly and it became a very rowdy encounter as they demanded that the woman should vacate the house and never come back.
