… husbands died same year mysteriously
According to the legends, about 16 years ago a set of twins in Kogi State introduced a strange dimension to marriage by taking one wife and having children from her. These strange brothers scored a weird first in standing the culture of their people on the head. Their father fought the arrangement for as long as he lived. The strange twins and husbands to one woman eventually died after their peculiar marriage arrangement was forcefully severed.
A peculiar world: The villagers of Ayetoro-Gbede and Ayegunle-Gbede in Ijumu Local Government Area of Kogi State witnessed the unusual two young husbands, who were born about 51 years ago and died the same year eleven years back. They carried on like they had their private world oblivious of what the tenets of culture taxed them to do. That defiance made them step outside defined lines to take one wife and had children from her.
They were simply known as Taiwo (Towo) and Kehinde (Koido), the general accolade for twins in Yoruba. But they called each other “Oba”, short for their surname – Obadero. Like an oba (king) even as they called each other, they died as mysteriously as they lived. The two were more than enigmatic. They had everything in common and did everything together. They said the same words, when speaking and joined their buttocks when defecating.
What was responsible for this unusual act was explained by their stepmother and aunt, Awawu Obadero and Racheal Ologe. “The reason for that unusual closeness and attachment was because they came with one placenta at birth and against our tradition of dividing it into two before burial, theirs was not divided. Thus, naturally, they began acting as an individual.”
Reliable tale: “The twins’ mother had died when they were barely four years old”, their sister started. “Right from their infancy, they did things in common. They had left home to fend for themselves at about 10 years of age. Later, they settled in Ayetoro-Gbede doing bricklaying, farming and other odd jobs. It was there they met their wife, Toyin (not real name), who they shared, in defiance to everyone’s objection. She bore two children for my brothers – Kulu, a female and Ibrahim, a male. Kulu is now married, while Ibrahim stays here in the family house. It was at the time our father insisted that they got married separately that strange and tragic things began happening to them.”
Wife of two: This reporter spoke to the twins’ wife, Toyin, who now lives in Aiyetoro-Gbede. She pleaded that her picture should not be published because she has just moved on with another man after the double take. She said: “I knew Taiwo and Kehinde (her late twin husbands) since adolescence. We met when we were laying bricks in Ayetoro. They were both strange and adorable to me because they did and had everything in common. Both had approached me the same time. They used to say the same word at the same time. Strange even to me, I did not accept or reject their advances.
“I soon became inseparable from them anywhere they went. I must have been carried away by the way they did everything in common. They felt hunger, urge to urinate and others, the same time. They even expressed love the same manner and time. They were very interesting lovers. So I could not resist them. Even the villagers used to say that only I understood their weird ways.”
The strange wife of two husbands had fondness for the two and possibly would have loved them dearly and equally as they did her. “I called one Iye-Oho, and the other Oba-Oho,” she revealed. The special woman never held anything back about the affection she had for the duo. It would have been a sizzling double take for her as she revealed that her two late husbands had sexual urge the same time and expressed love, sex and romance the same way. You might be going too far to inquire if any of them was particularly better in bed than the other or if one of them gave her better deal. ‘All I know is that they are outstanding.’
Putting asunder to what God has joined: After giving birth to Ibrahim, the second child, father of the weird twins, Eleha Obadero, began putting pressure on them to marry separate women, in line with customs and tradition of the local community. “They did not like that because they had grown so attached to me. I did not also like the idea and so I withdrew from them. It was then they relocated to Ayegunle-Gbede, their hometown. But they never married another woman. Though, I was told they tried several women, it never worked out. I had to join my husbands later, hoping things would be better, but their father gave no chance for this re-union till they died in strange circumstances. Then I left with my daughter, Kulu and returned here,” the woman of history narrated.
One child, two dads: 19-year old Ibrahim, the only son of the twins, also confirmed that his grand-dad at a time pestered his late fathers to get married separately and it was not long after this that tragedy struck. He said: “It is true that my grandfather wanted my fathers to get married to different women. But it wasn’t long after this that strange things began to happen to them. He used to also say that Taiwo was more likely my father, as I behaved more like him.”
But the handsome teen knows, without any doubt, that he has peculiar identity, as, perhaps, the only young man in his world who could be excused to fill a form stating double paternity instead of one, like others. And as a young child growing up, he would not have lacked paternal care, not with two fathers ever present with him.
Four years ago, after the twins had accepted to tow the line of custom and accept to marry the prescribed way, they died. Their stepmother, Awawu Obadero said: “Kehinde was smitten by snake in his farm one day and unusual of him, he did not reveal it until late in the night when it was too late to remove the venom. He died shortly after. After his death, Taiwo immediately became a shadow of his former self and was always saying he would join his brother. In less than a year later, he fell ill and died.
Okilo, the village ballad, told us: ‘If you asked one of them a question, the two will answer at once, saying the same word. They urinate on the same spot. They were very identical and so you cannot differentiate them. They had only one wife whom they were always going out with. They loved her so much. They were fantastic husbands to the lady. They reigned as strange twins in this village and died the same year.”
Escape by thread of luck: One young man stumbled on this investigative process. Upon his realisation of the thrust of the report started with a plea. Sir, what do you want to gain by doing this report? I know you are a journalist searching for some good plots to sell your paper but these are archival wounds you want to exhume. You will wrongly bring our community to bad media.
As explanations were made to him and it was not going to work for him. He got violent. He raised his hand to deliver a slap on the face of the ‘harmless’ journalist. Residual Taekwondo skills saved the situation. The slapping hand was blocked. A more aggressive attack led the aggressor to suffer some minor pains. Two other boys joined but the rest became a relic. Suddenly, the youngmen were up on arms. Voices strolled to the sky. Calm as a cucumber, the reporter had a minor crowd of locals who stood their grounds.
A police van doing their routine patrol found the rowdy setting. Brandishing their guns and wanting to know what happened. They ‘arrested’ the journalist, put him in the back of their hi-lux vans, drove to their station. The case was transferred to Kabba, their next ranking station. There he was ‘bailed’ at the garage and a long trip back to Abuja began.
Three days later, another team had to go by commercial vehicle to a corner of the community where the reporter’s car was parked when the story began. The car was intact. Upon the attempt to pick the vehicle, there were demands to prove ownership. The papers were brought and the ‘owners’ claimed to be evangelists who came on a five-day evangelisation of the rural areas. They only parked here to access the other communities by ‘okada’ machine.
The evangelists who had no totem of their religion whereas the two of them may not be able to recite the Lord’s prayer. They were believed. They took their car and drove another three and a half hours to Abuja.
Credits: Olajide Fashikun | GongNews
