Carnal relationships around the world between men and women (which sometimes lead to marriage) have intrigues, mendacity, honesty and outright wickedness and exploitation woven around them. Depending on the compatibility or otherwise of love birds the emotion and twists and turns connected with the expression and demonstration of 'amour' go beyond the immediate comprehension and satisfactory dominion of the mortal man.

Love, the true or false version of it, has made the life of many a happy experience while others on the wrong ends of the divide life has been turned into a nightmare. Love especially when it is not the true version has led many to their graves; victims are made daily out of the desire to belong to the big love tree.

Di Na Nwunye Obodo Oyibo (Foreign Husbands and Wives) is still in vogue. The phenomenon is rather growing making and breaking homes. In Nigeria as elsewhere in Africa the trend is assuming a life of its own: girls waiting on their 'fianceés' based abroad, boys waiting on their babes abroad. In most cases this long waits end up producing negative results, heartaches and heartbreaks that associate with love gone awry.

From Paris, France, in 2005 I remember calling my mother in Nigeria and informing her that I had found a 'wife', a white French lady I was in love with then. My mother reacted surprisingly negatively giving her reasons for her opposition to any such union made in abroad. Mama Akuehute reasoned that apart from the language barrier and colour she was against any marriage outside my roots. She cited two cases in my village: Ndu and Uche to buttress her point. Besides she detests the idea of her black son giving birth to a child almost eighty percent non-black, pigmentation wise!

Ndu went to Germany over ten years ago after finishing his college education. The last offspring of his polygamous family the mother prevailed on his elder brother to send him to Europe because Ndu was a terror to the family. Ndu's mother loved the boy so much that nothing he asked from the old woman which she could afford that was never his for the asking. The relationship between mother and son was very deep as in any case of a loving mother and her loving son.

Having settled down Ndu perhaps in search of the elusive 'green card' had to marry a German lady and they have been blessed with two kids. When I went home December 2004 I learnt Ndu's mother had passed away; she died agonizing over Celestine's failure to return home after ten years living and working in Germany. On December 30th I assisted in the mother's burial in the village without Ndu in attendance. Ndu's elder brother in Lagos gave incoherent reasons for his absence setting tongues wagging in the village. But according to what I had gathered Ndu decided to shun his mother's burial in order not to lose his German resident permit. Though he cried on phone when I spoke with him from the village I could understand his frustration over the fact that the cars and cash he wired home from base had been squandered by his elder brother.

Uche went to Germany few years after Ndu. He 'fell' in love with a Benin-born lady who has been coming home while Uche stayed behind. Though Uche has really developed his family, building houses and connecting electricity and digging borehole his 'marriage' with the Benin babe was done and consumated without two of them participating physically. Ndu's parents had to travel to Benin to locate the girl's home and pay her dowry! Pictures and video clip of the marriage were later dispatched to them in Germany. Representative suitor-absentee marriage like this is something my mother never liked and she told me without mincing words.

My mother made it clear that she does not want to see this kind of scenario happening to me. And because of my love for her I towed the line and quickly dropped the idea of the international marriage but I had told my mom that marrying from home is outside the question. Today I believe mom is happy with my decision to settle for an Ivorian wife even though she and my wife played language drama in the village. My mother understands and speaks only Igbo language and my wife does not understand Igbo though she speaks English. So you can then imagine the burden of the two women turning me into an interpreter whenever we visit home.

Here in Abidjan a romantic interesting tale was told recently on the TV programme "Tonnerre" involving an American resident here and one super-model cum artist Fely. Fely, a very pretty high-flying babe 'married' Doug after their chance meeting in an organized show-biz event. The marriage was blessed with a girl-child. Fely and Doug were having great time until Fely's half sister came into the picture. Fely's mother introduced a young girl to Fely as her sister, a child she had before she married Fely's father. According to the pretty Fely herself who told her own side of the abominable story (before Doug was equally hooked on for his version of events leading up to the break-up of the marriage) she travelled to the US and her supposed sister visited her matrimonial home in her absence. While there to 'salute' Doug she seduced the American and before one could spell 'morality' they were 'fucking' hell out of each other.

Doug narrated how he was 'hypnotised' diabolically when Fely's sister and mother took him to a village and pretended they had wanted to protect him from witchcraft and other evil attacks from his enemies -- something that would guarantee him security in life and everything he did. Now that the 'juju' has cleared from his eyes and ears he wanted Fely to come back home matrimonially but Fely was giving some conditions before re-unification could ever be possible. Meanwhile the sister at the center of the scandal is now in the States having been taken there by Doug.

Edith is an Ivorian girl who was dating a Spanish sailor, a captain of a Spanish ship company that came often to Abidjan to deliver goods and services. And Micky is a Liberian who was deported from Dubai after a fraud-related offences. Edith and Micky had a kid out of their relationship, they were living together in the same apartment and whenever the Spanish was in town Edith abandoned home for hotel to keep his foreign husband company. In one of such romantic meetings in a five-star hotel (having pre-planned the final plot against the unsuspecting white man) Edith drugged the Spaniard late in the night after rounding off bouts of sexual intercourse with her. As the white man lay 'dead' on the bed Edith swung into action stealing his 12 million FCFA and bolting away with it locking up the man in the hotel suite and walking away with the keys! In the evening when the substance's effect had faded the divorcee-Spaniard raised alarm that attracted the hotel management who broke down the door of his suite to 'free' him from 'captivity'.

The Spaniard so 'freed' went to the police and even advertised the theft in some national newspapers but Edith and Micky had bolted away to Ghana from where Micky found his way once again to Dubai. Edith settled down in Tema town quietly enjoying herself often sneaking back to Abidjan to visit her daughter. In the end the Spanish sailor after the initial shock and disbelief took vacation and went back home to lick the 'wounds' of his loss both financially and romantically. Micky has since played Edith a fast one taking a new wife in Dubai who answered Edith's call whenever she wanted to speak to Micky. The Spaniard has now married another Ivorian girl and bought a villa downtown where they live happily. As of today Edith is now broke having squandered the stolen millions and she is reportedly doing prostitution in Tema looking out for another White victim!

Louis who returned home years back with a Greek lady had his wife to contend with as the local wife gave them hell. She insisted on three of them sleeping in the same bed! The Greek understood she was used and left Nigeria soon after threatening to expose Louis in Greece but Louis cleverly avoided such scenario; he never went back to Athens; he went rather to Spain. He escaped the wrath of the Greek lady waiting to inflict a memorable revenge.

We have seen men who left their wives to travel overseas for greener pastures only to 'forget' them whenever the good life and good returns overpower their reasoning power. You see them re-marrying whites or in the case of ladies white men with money to spend corner their loves and end up putting them in a family way. Some white men divorce their wives at home when they discover the African beauty or 'charmed' out of their wits. Marriage with the aid of 'juju' is phenomenal indeed!

Di Na Nwunye Obodo Oyibo 'na wa oh'!, Foreign husbands and wives I bow and tremble oh!!