TRIBUNE
I was married to two women, but because of the situation of things in the country, I had to let go of one of them.”
This was the confession of 43-year-old Yunusa Ahmad, who hails from Gada Local Government Area of Sokoto State. Tall and dark-complexioned, he comes across as a liberal friendly Muslim northerner. Ahmad sells electrical appliances such as rechargeable lamps, torchlight, extension boxes, padlocks, battery cells, keyholders and the like, under a big umbrella.
“I’ve been here (Warri) for about three years. I’m from Sokoto, Gada Local Government Area. I’m 43 years old,” he told Saturday Tribune at an enclave largely domiciled by northerners at the Warri Main Market, along Warri-Sapele Road in Warri South Local Government Area of Delta State.
Northerners dwelling in Delta State, Warri in particular, are in their thousands. Mostly, the hewers of wood and fetchers of water, they do all menial jobs. At another level, they’re mostly the occupiers of skyscraper offices of NNPCL and its subsidiaries. In essence, the more enlightened ones among northners in Warri have risen up the economic ladder.
Letting our correspondent into a brief story of his background, Ahmad said: “My mum is alive, but my dad is late. My parents gave birth to 12 of us, but four are dead.”
Asked his second wife he divorced to stem his economic hardship was offended by his action, Ahmad, with a wave of the hand, said: “she wasn’t angry as she understood the situation were in.” On further probe of how the lady would just agree to walk away without creating a scene, he said: “Afterall, she hadn’t had any child for me!”
The wife left with him has four children for him, but given the economic debacle bedeviling the country and which was telling very hard on her and their children, he was left with no choice but to send them back to Sokoto where he believed things were better.
“Managing the one (wife) remaining also became difficult, too, so I had to send her with our four children back home. It’s easier to survive there than here.
“I didn’t have any child with that one I asked to go. However, I had four children with the one that is with me now. I’m not planning to marry any other woman because the cost of living is too high,” he said.
With him now alone in Warri, how is he coping without a wife as well as the debilitating fuel situation in the country? “I have been in Warri for almost three years now. I’m managing this business and because of the fuel price increase, people don’t patronize me that much again. Before, there was a lot of profits in the business because things were cheaper, but that is no longer the case.
“What you can get for N2,000 and sell at the rate of N3, 000 before, you can’t even get it for the sales price again because the cost of things has increased.
“I don’t have a girlfriend here. We Hausas don’t engage in infidelity when we’re not with our wives. I send money to my mom. Lost my dad about a year ago,” he disclosed.
Speaking on why thousands of northerners are resident in Delta State, especially Warri and environs, he attributed the situation to the country’s insecurity and insurgency. “As per Nigeria’s situation, we’re all managing even in the north. What we enjoyed doing in the north before, we can no longer do today. The banditry in Sokoto is overwhelming. You go to farm, they kidnap you. Farmers can’t go to the farm in peace, and I suspect that the people terrorising the North are from Niger Republic, and there are Nigerians too, as well as citizens of some other countries from North Africa.
“It is as a result of the insecurity in some of the Northern states that made some of us to relocate here. Those bandits are Muslims, but bad Muslims because a true Muslim cannot go and kidnap his fellow Muslims neither will a true Christian go and kidnap another Christian. The bandits are just evil people.
“Many of my people, especially from Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Adamawa, Bornu and the rest migrated to the South South basically because of the activities of bandits and terrorists. Some villages there have been totally deserted. But that wasn’t the reason I came down here,” he noted.
“I like the weather here. Notwithstanding, I go to Sokoto to visit my family every six months and stay for two months before coming back. I have a farm where I plant crops like groundnut, corn and other things. Here, I love it; I love the people, Warri boys do not disturb me,” he remarked flashing a smile.
THIS STORY FIRST APPEARED IN TRIBUNE
