Hidden agenda of Nigeria’s Diaspora men

Many Nigerian women overseas are having legal battles with their husbands. When the Spiritual Director of Zion Ministries, Evangelist Ebuka Obi, makes such assertion, you can take what he says to the bank. And he should know because the far larger population of members of the ministry reside outside Nigeria.

The good news is that his many sermons against such litigations have yielded fruits as about 50 percent of the cases have been withdrawn from the courts. The major reason for the court cases is the fight between spouses for control of funds within the marital union. This is moreso where the wife earns much more as a healthcare professional, especially if she is a Board-certified nurse.



Typically, Nigerian female nurses after working for long hours stretching up to 15 hours, frown at being expected by their men to do domestic chores, have sex with them and then handover their earnings for the husband to disburse. When women resist, this often leads to marital quarrels. googletag.

cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1718806029429-0'); }); Ebuka However, this scenario is not common to most marriages between Nigerian men and women in the diaspora.

Some couples have built strong, happy marriages, which indicate that there was good understanding between the spouses, especially where the men recognized the reality of living in a foreign land and adjusting expectations accordingly. Such men are to be commended.There have been numerous instances where African men living overseas erroneously tried to impose the African concept of marriage on their wives in foreign countries.

You, therefore, find that when the women resist the unreasonable expectations of the husband, she is branded unruly, stubborn and disrespectful. $(document).ready(function(){(adsbygoogle = window.

adsbygoogle || []).push({})}); In most cases, men in the diaspora refrain from marrying single African ladies who are already living overseas and Westernized. They rather come back home with a hidden agenda, to choose ladies who are already working in the healthcare professions.

Beautiful, brainy, hardworking ladies in the other professions do not really attract their attention, except if they can study to qualify as nurses when they go overseas.Men with this kind of agenda often hang around health training institutions in the hunt for prospective wives. When they get one, the lady gets filled with excitement about travelling to a foreign country without knowing they would be made to bear the greater burden of funding the family with her attractive income earned from her healthcare practice.

It is all a transactional marriage for such men.These men with such hidden agenda also factor after about five years of being married to a qualified nurse in the US or Europe, he would be able to build a beautiful house in his village. Ordinarily, it is not a bad idea for a couple to work together and acquire properties.

What is not right is the hidden agenda associated with it.Recalling her painful experience, Uchechi said: “Herbert and myself were introduced by her cousin who was my classmate in the School of Nursing, Imo State. We fell in love at first sight and in less than two years, I travelled to United States as a State Registered Nurse (SRN) and State Registered Midwife (SRM) to join my husband.

Within a short time, I passed all my qualifying examinations and became an American Registered Nurse. I earned a good salary which ran into six figures when converted to Naira. “With a son in our marriage, I thought my husband and I were still operating on the same frequency.

On a certain day, my husband woke me up and demanded we talk. He went down memory lane and then said, ‘Now that you have a good job and earning fat income, I think we should think towards home by having a joint savings account.’ I want us to erect a two-storey building in my father’s compound just like the Okoloigwe’s did have done.

’ At this point I interjected and said, ‘No, my first target is to bring my mother here now that she is alive. I want to do this as her only daughter. Do not forget she raised me single-handedly as a widow.

’ This disagreement caused tension between us. When I spoke to a few friends, they felt that the man should have started the building, while I would support him as his woman. My husband wanting a joint account with me was not what I wanted at the time.

The heated argument we had soured our relationship. Our marriage became toxic and we ended up divorcing.”I just wonder why our brothers in diaspora refuse to get into the health professions themselves and qualify as nurses.

Are they ashamed of it or what? $(document).ready(function(){(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).

push({})}); In the same vein, Marie Ukeogu told her unsavory story: “I was an investment banker when our paths crossed. Joseph my ex-husband visited from the United States and visited our bank. I attended to him and we got talking.

The idea of marriage appealed to us and our parents gave their consent. His American citizenship facilitated my joining him immediately. Within two months of my arrival, I discovered that America is a good place for people who want to hide.

My husband was a citizen who had no job. His selling point was “I am a citizen.” At the time we were discussing marriage, I asked him what he was doing to earn a living, he said, ‘I am a citizen who lives in an organized society.

Jobs are not as difficult to find as in Nigeria. It is easy to joggle within jobs and I believed him. After six months, I paid my fees, to start training as a nurse.

I qualified and got into nursing career. Meanwhile, my husband was still chasing shadows. Years into our union, we had two children, but one of them was autistic, and my husband was not helping matters.

His dilly dally attitude left bitter taste in my mouth. Before long we started having serious issues over career and income. On a certain day while we were arguing, he said, ‘Afterall, I am a citizen.

’ So I told him to use his citizenship to pay his bills. As an investment banker, I was earning well before I joined him. Narcissism made him to relocate to another state, leaving the children and I.

In several cases, the cause of the rift in Diaspora marriages is the unwholesome tendency of some men who want to project the African mentality and culture as it relates to marriage. Take the case of Cynthia and Ike, who met in school as undergraduates in Nigeria. He graduated before me and left the country.

While in school, we practically lived together in his residential lodge. Honestly, I acted as his wife because I did all domestic things, including washing his dirty clothes. Marriage bell rang and Ike was comfortable to choose me.

All traditional marriage rites were done in his absence. The card for our wedding which was to be held in the United States and some documents facilitated my getting a visa to join him in the United States. Initially after I arrived, it was all rosy.

I was employed in a shopping mall because I did not have legal documents for a worthy job. My job was to pack goods from a heavy-duty vehicle and arrange them in a store. Honestly, the sight was not lady-like, but that was where I found myself.

After that hard job, my husband would come home and wait for me to do all the chores, and still want sex in the night. One day I told him, ‘We are not in Nigeria anymore, support me by doing domestic chores. We can transform our living if you do all the bills, while I do all domestic chore,s Otherwise, we share bills and chore equally.

Do not let me succumb to death because I came to America.” However, Chief Ekeh told a heartwarming story: “I have lived here for over 40 years. There is no domestic chore I do not do, from cleaning, laundry, cooking, mowing the lawn and changing diapers when my children were babies.

All these did not stop me from paying bills. Today I have a peaceful successful marriage. All my children turned out so well in various professions.

”Lastly, I have a few questions for men that say they want wife material: Are you a husband material? Do you have a sellable character and CV?” A friend once said: “Do you believe in destiny? If you do, what is your character because character sets the stage and welcomes destiny.”Men must come to the realization that women have long gone past being bedmates. They are resourceful, versatile and intelligent.

You only need to demonstrate that you are worthy of them, love them accordingly and then you will enjoy the gift that God has loaded into them. Remember, the Bible says, “He who finds a wife, finds a good thing and obtains favour from God.” It is a genuine man with true fear of God and reverence for God that will experience the blessings puts into a wife the Almighty Creator.

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