Continued from last week Saturday

“IT’S alright,” Mrs. Ekundayo replied, “I wish you more success in your business. Please, buy me bush meat on your way back so that I can prepare your favourite egusi soup to sweeten your palate.”

“That’s okay,” he said, “I’m so happy to have a wonderful and lovely woman like you as wife.”

Chief Ekundayo was so happy that his wife didn’t suspect anything. That afternoon he went to Murtala Mohammed International Airport and took the next available flight to Abuja to see Joko, his stepdaughter whom he had put in the family way.

It became a regular thing every weekend for Chief Ekundayo to travel to Abuja to see Joko. He would frame big lies to his wife for his reasons to travel to different states; however his destination was Abuja. This continued for nine months until Joko delivered a baby girl right there in the Federal Capital Territory. The following weekend Chief Ekundayo framed a big lie to his wife.

“I’m travelling to Canada on a holiday. I’ll be back in two months time.” he said.

“That’s okay dear,” Mrs. Ekundayo replied, “but make sure you call me on regular basis darling.”

“I’ll do that darling,” he answered, giggling with rebellious joy.

That night Chief Ekundayo landed in Abuja to celebrate the birth of his new born baby. When he got to Abuja he connived with Joko and hatched a clever plan. He told Joko to phone her mum and tell her that she had given birth, and that she would be coming to Lagos to see her very soon; that her doctor said she needed to rest very well. Mrs. Ekundayo was really happy that her daughter had been delivered of a bouncing baby girl. Three days later Chief Ekundayo called his wife on a private number pretended he was actually calling from Canada.

“Your wife had given birth to a lovely baby girl in Abuja!” Mrs. Ekundayo said heartily to her husband.

“Hallelujah!” he screamed, “Congratulations! I’ll be glad to see her when I’m back in the country. My regards to her and her husband!”

Chief Ekundayo employed the service of a young man who spoke to his wife as if he was the fiancé and father of Joko’s child. Once in a while they’d call the young man, pay him some money for the service and tell him what he had to say to Mrs. Ekundayo so that the plot wouldn’t come to the open. This secret affair between Chief Ekundayo and Joko, his stepdaughter, had been going on for quite a while. Two months later he (Chief Ekundayo) arrived Lagos and told a blatant lie that all this while he had been away to Canada. His wife didn’t suspect anything fishy. She was a very straightforward and honest woman. She had not the least thought that all that was happening was an evil plot or coup hatched by her husband and her only daughter. Mrs. Ekundayo even sent the name for the newborn baby in absentia.

She said the child should be christened Busayo.

It’s a saying that, ‘you can fool some people some time but not all the people all the time.’ Chief Ekundayo as usual had travelled to Abuja to visit Joko while he told his wife he was going to Kwara State for a political meeting. His wife always fell for his antics. Then, right there in Abuja an old friend of Mrs. Ekundayo who knew Joko very well and also recognized Chief Ekundayo, sighted both of them hugging and chatting heartily at a particular house in Garki, Abuja. The woman was a frequent traveler to Abuja. That following weekend when she reached Lagos she went straight to Mrs. Ekundayo’s house to tell her the strange discovery…

To be concluded next week Saturday