By Funke Egbemode
Whether you are a runs-girl or a serious-ready-to-mingle single looking to settle down, you need an extra pair of eyes to ‘see’ the man on your case. Pastors call it a discerning spirit. It’s the ability to deeply and spiritually see beyond the fine face and six packs the man toasting you presents. Women, these days, need in-built sensors and alarm systems that will flash red, when the good looking, smooth-talking guy calling them ‘babe’ and opening car doors for them looks like he’s serious.
Babe, don’t fall yet. Stay steady on your feet and with clear eyes look inside yourself and his soul. You don’t need witchcraft. Just apply the same energy and and seriousness you deploy when you want to buy a second hand car or plot of land in Lagos. Do due diligence. Ask questions. Do not take anything for granted. Do not be sucked in by his nice accent and polished ways.
Some months ago, I did a piece about how hook-up girls run into yahoo plus guys’ barbed wires. Yes, the juju and ritual and jazz angle.
A fine undergraduate meets a young guy who buys her the latest iPhone, loads it with an unlimited data plan and takes her for regular suya and shawarma dates in the latest Mercedes Benz 450 GLE. He even starts calling her ‘Iyawo mi’, the future mother of my children, and buys her a promise ring. Then one day, the girl disappears without a trace or is found dead in her bed or sick and disheveled at a roundabout, eating sacrifice. Did you get the picture? Some girls somewhere, this minute, are probably falling for that poisoned chalice of fast boys on the fast lane just because they want to live the soft life.
Moving on, today is about mature women looking for husbands, and the men who are chasing them. I have reliably learnt that even they are now being pursued with jazz and juju. How? Why? These men want to know if these women have fortune, wealth written in their stars for the future or even immediately. Don’t gasp. I heard that more and more men are spiritually checking the prospects of their prospective wives.
They do not want women who will not be rich. They now wear nice-looking signets specially meant for discernment purposes. Once they use it to hold a woman and it warms up their fingers, they know they are on to a good thing. If it stays cold, they start disengaging, ignoring her calls and eventually closing her case. But if she’s found out to have ‘aasiki’, and a ‘good head,’ the guy will become Romeo and gum his body and soul to her.
Baby girl, you need to do your own checking. Don’t let a man without ‘aasiki’ come and use his fortune-less head or just pure laziness to turn you to an ATM. A woman should be a help to her man. But when men turn relationships and marriages into business ventures, something close to checking out shares on the Stock Exchange, a girl can’t be too careful. Who knows, a fetish man may one day decide to totally appropriate the fortunes of his woman using advanced jazz, instead of just shaming and enjoying his wife, in line with God’s words that whosoever finds a wife finds a good thing.
These days, desperation is leading men into doing some unholy things to women who have had children for them. So girls, keep your eyes peeled. If a man starts showing deep interest and you start feeling butterflies in your tummy, it calls for due diligence. Don’t be blinded by the roses and perfume and ‘Asun’. Take time to pray and fast, especially if you are in the ‘Evening Market’ zone. Like in your late 30s and 40s. Do not let your screaming biological clock deafen you to the alarm of spiritual invasion.
What about men who use women as social ladders? The women may be extremely beautiful and curvaceous or she might be of a earache looks with no curves at all. Then you see this young or younger man ‘loving’ her like he has never seen a woman before. But what he’s loving is the contract she can give him. She’s his plug for contracts for all and any kind. If a man who ordinarily you know will not look in your direction starts following you like a dog in heat, check your censors. Check who you know and the questions your new Beau has been asking you lately.
“Babe, can you introduce me to the Governor…”
“Is it okay if I tag along to the dinner at the Villa?”
“I can drive you to your appointment at NNPC since your driver is ill. You don’t have to cancel it.”
“The meeting with the Minister of Agric….. and I’ve been longing to meet him. I have a proposal on his table.”
How is your alarm doing? If you want to know if you are more than a contract and contact ladder, deny him access and link to those big boys and girls on your contact list and see how fast he’ll fall out of love. Ask those big babes in Abuja. Now, that does not mean men like that are always social climbers. Some, no, a few of them are genuinely there for the long haul. They have their own hustles, but won’t mind Madam’s contacts. But if it doesn’t work out, they won’t run.
There are also women who use their contacts to get the men they want. A woman may not be endowed in front and possess no ‘bakassi’ but if she knows the bigwigs on the corridors of power, what’s wrong in dangling that in the face of salivating men? It’s called using what you have to get what you want. Women are forward looking-creatures and very practical beings when it comes to choosing the men they want to be with. We do not pretend, especially when we arrive at the evening market zone. In other words, a woman who’s scored low in the looks and figure department can decide to use her wealth and contacts to negotiate the kind of relationship she wants. Isn’t that one of the reasons behind some women throwing it out there that they are British or American citizens, when they get desperate for marriage?
Well, an added advantage is an added advantage, whether it is an MBA or a blue passport.
Heart of the matter? Let all women know that men are now doing spiritual due diligence, financial investigations, to determine the eligibility of the women they are dating. They do not want to buy ‘black market’. They do not want to fly blind. So my dear women, do your thing too. Put your investigators to work, all of them and ensure you are not being played, that you are not being used or set up by an opportunist and player.
Funke Egbemode was managing director/editor-in-chief of New Telegraph Newspaper, president of the Nigerian Guild of Editors and commissioner for information in Osun State. Email: egbemode3@gmail.com