The Anointed Wife
Any ordinary wife has their work cut out for them in loving their husbands, in serving them for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, but a pastor’s wife has to help her husband maintain his holy anointing, and to do so with an invisible hand.
“I didn’t do it. Mummy, do you believe me?” How long has it been since I became the mummy of our organisation, the mother in our marriage? I can’t remember. It feels like forever since I had the pleasure, the intimacy of hearing my own name fall from my husband’s lips—my real name, not Mummy, sometimes followed by one of the children’s names.
I look at him now. His pleading eyes and downturned mouth. His hair is impeccably groomed, his salt and pepper beard neatly trimmed. We have been married for over twenty years. Our love has gone beyond compassion, beyond butterflies in the stomach and settled into a form of kinship.
Tade and I are members of an elite, exclusive club, we couldn’t be closer if we had shared some kind of blood covenant. “Of course, I believe you. I am working with Demilade from PR, my press release will be on our Facebook page within the hour.”
He smiles broadly, it reaches his eyes and brightens his aura. He takes two steps towards me and when he’s close enough, reaches out and rubs my arms. Up and down.Three
times. He stops when I pick up my notepad from the table to look over my handwritten letter. It is meant for the members of our church and the wicked, judgmental general public.
My dear hopefuls,
It is with a heavy heart that I write to you. As you go about your daily activities, please do not let the devil take hold of your mind with fake news. Two weeks ago, an article was released accusing pastor of sleepingbwith a young lady on the 19th of June 2020.
The young lady claims that my husband, our daddy in the Lord, picked her up from Festac, took her to a hotel close by to have inappropriate relations with her. She says she is
coming forward because she saw Daddy on television preaching and she didn’t think that it was right for an adulterer to be the one to guide people on their spiritual journeys.
I am not saying this young lady is a liar but on the date that she claims they met, our daddy in the Lord and I were in the house with our three children rounding up a three-day weekly fast. We always round up this particular fast with a prayer and vigil which is mostly heralded by our daddy.
That evening, I led the prayer because Daddy had to rest his voice for the next day—we had a retreat for pastors all over Lagos.However, throughout the vigil, Daddy was with me,encouraging me and making sure that I never felt alone.
Hopefuls, I don’t think you can know a person completely but if my husband—our daddy in the Lord was a twin, I think his wife of twenty years would know. Unless the young lady met my husband’s long-lost brother that we have never heard of, then her claim of staying with Daddy throughout the night is false.
The society finds it easier to judge leaders— religious, political, academic leaders but does anyone ever stop to think about the consequences of their judgement on these families? This media organisation that published this article, Instablog, has had no sympathy for my family and I. Otherwise they would have reached out to us to confirm the young lady’s claims.
My children are being mocked in school as the ones with the father that likes ashewos, the church lines have been ringing nonstop and our daddy in the Lord seems to be struggling through all of these because he is human. This is why I decided to write this open letter to you all. To ask that you remember that we are human beings. We are flesh and blood.
We are not equipped to survive social media slander. I ask in the name of the most high that the blogs take down this article and that we stop attacking the church which is the body of Christ.
The young lady in question is a woman of the world who mostly moves at night. Is it not possible that under the influence of narcotics, she might have mixed up her
sightings? Let us remember that only our Lord is blameless and without fault. This young lady may have just been seeing wrongly.
She describes a car that is similar to that of our daddy in the Lord, which I ask—is our daddy the only man in Lagos with that car? Is the car manufacturer only making cars for my family? Again, I am not condemning the young lady because the kingdom of God allows for all types of people, in fact, we look forward to welcoming her in our fold and sharing the good news of the Bible with her.
Finally, please keep my family, the young lady and I in your prayers as we all navigate through this difficult time. I pray that the Lord continues to stay with usespecially during these perilous times.
God bless you.
Pastor Mrs Evelyn Oriade
I know what you’re thinking. You think I’m wrong in supporting my husband, abi? Is it not a cliché at this point to accuse powerful men of scandalous things? Ordinary people enjoy the spectacle of watching those with a platform, a brand, a pulpit, fall.
But I told you, I know Tade. I knew him when he was a gangly twenty-two-year-old with a concave chest and a beardless face. We met in my father’s small parlour church. I was eighteen. Although my father’s foray into evangelism didn’t pan out, my burgeoning friendship with the slightly older boy who had just moved into our area with his family deepened.
Even then he was bookish and serious, while I was only pretending to be because of my strict parents. I knew that he would be safe to be around, and my parents wouldn’t question us spending all our time together. While he was timid and reserved, I was wild and carefree.
The first time I roughly planted my mouth on his and vigorously rubbed the area around his crotch he leaped away from me in surprise. “Sister Evelyn!” He swiped the back of his hand across his mouth and scrambled to his feet.
We were alone in his parent’s two-bedroomed house, studying at the dining table. There was no light and I was tired of waiting for him to pick up on every signal I had sent him before that moment when I took matters into my own hands.
“I’m not your sister. Besides, you’re older than me.” He backed away as I stood up and walked towards him. He muttered something about this being wrong. So, I said okay, I wouldn’t do it again. But I did, two weeks later. This time we were in my house, downstairs by the door. We had a maid back then, and she was in the kitchen singing Igbo gospel songs. I used her singing voice to judge her location in the house, so when he turned around to say goodbye to me, I kissed him again.
His back was pressed against the small section of the wall behind the door. I was gentler this time, softer. He didn’t push me away and his lips closed warmly against mine. After that, we kissed every time we were alone. Falling against each other with fevered passion. My rubbing against his groin became more practiced, and I was rewarded with a bulge that grew with each caress.
One day, I couldn’t take it anymore so I hiked up my skirt and got on top of him. I found the sweet spot between our bodies and I rocked my hips back and forth, the thin material of my underwear and the cotton of his trousers moistening. He moaned hotly against my neck, his hands fondling my breasts as he whispered my name over and over. Evelyn. Evelyn.
Those moments felt like liquid ecstasy. But he never allowed us to go beyond that until we were married three years later.
So, you see? That prostitute is lying and she will soon be cast back into the pit of hell where she crawled out from.
The story did not die. I should not have been surprised. Gossip these days is a hot commodity, a quick path to wealth on the internet highway. In the old days, rumours would circulate among friends and family in your area, in the worst-case scenario, it might reach another local government area or state. These days, bad news travels at the speed of light, leaping from one blog post in Lagos to London within seconds.
Several blogs reposted the original article and within a week, the girl whose name I have refused to learn or remember had sat down with journalists detailing her alleged one-night encounter with my husband. I compared the metrics of my Facebook post and retweets of the church’s official response to the bloggers and saw that we were losing. Badly.
What? Are you surprised that I’m talking about losing? Do you think this is an ethical or moral war that this girl is waging against my husband? Of course not. This thing is all about PR.
Even though she is a liar and a prostitute, the truth is, in this social media era we are in, the only thing that matters is who people believe, who they sympathise with. And right now, I am losing, but I won’t be for long.
The task of being a pastor’s wife is multi-layered, like an onion. I have skills and weapons that you would not believe. Let’s begin with my stylist. She makes sure that I am dressed head to toe in clothes and accessories that exude wealth with a hint of humility, outfits that skim my curves in a way that is attractive but not sleazy. My toenails are polished but not French manicured.
I stick to warm colours and pastels, no Ruby Woo for me. And what about social media? Our church’s biggest audience is on Facebook, the masses, that’s why my first press release went there. I use simple, common language to appeal to a sense of connection. We are all the same, after all.
On Twitter, I target the intelligentsia, I know the buzzwords and throw them around. Empowerment. Patriarchy. Community. These days I keep the comment section locked because I don’t have time to argue, just inform.
Then we haveour PR outfit, a staff of five including a videographer. They film and edit our events, make sure to capture the special magic of our church services, with a splattering of intimate behind-the-scenes moments appearing here and there.
It could be a shot of Tade rehearsing a sermon, or one of our children giving him a hug when he gets off the stage. It broadens our appeal, you see, humanises us. These videos go on our YouTube channel. The team is hard at work now in the event of the so-called scandal to upload our latest service.
We worked with an external crisis manager to make sure it hit the right note. Not too defensive, not sober enough to look like an admission of guilt. I manage them all. I haven’t even mentioned our social media interns, the admin team or the finance department.
Do you see what I mean?
I’m sure you’re being cynical now. Why does spreading the word of God need so much machinery behind it? Is this the Gospel or an enterprise, right? Look around you. The world
has changed and will continue to do so.
Are Tade and I supposed to don sandals and robes beating drums up and down Lagos with dusty feet and cracked voices? Does that sound dignified to you? Would you even buy car insurance from someone who looks like that, how much more the word of God?
Anyway, I have decided to issue my second press release in this matter. Me and this girl have only just started.
Good evening my brothers and sisters, I understand that a couple of groups had an issue with being addressed as hopefuls. I apologise, I used that term with the purest intention. However, since I am aware that many people are uncomfortable with it, I will refrain from such terms. I will now use “brothers and sisters”, because I believe we are connected through Christ, and God is our father.
It has come to our attention that the young lady in question has released an audio tape of her exchange with our daddy in the Lord, I am also aware of the fact that she has been offered a book deal— ‘My life, and the Night with Pastor’ where she will detail her supposed sexual encounter with our daddy.
I am reading all the comments on social media asking me to come out and have a sit down with the young lady. I apologise in advance as I will not be able to do that. The Bible says that we must flee from all appearances of sin and we should not be equally yoked with unbelievers.
I strongly believe sitting with a woman of the night is an insult to our Lord and Saviour. I stand by my husband and I am sad to see people doubt the word of a man of God and his wife. What will it profit us to lie? If my husband truly slept with the young lady, he will come out, repent and retire from the church.
This is the rule that has been laid down. There is no severe punishment for adultery because Jesus Christ has paid for our sins so why will Daddy lie if there is no punishment? Yes, it may affect our public image but that can be fixed through Jesus Christ and rehabilitation.
My husband did not sleep with the lady in question.The tape recording may have been doctored; we live in a world where technology can and will do most things. What is voice copying in a world filled with photoshop, autotune and filters?
It is possible this woman found a way to recreate our daddy’s voice. It is also shameful that a publishing firm agreed to publish a book like this. They didn’t think about the children that would have access to the pornography in
the book or the families that would be affected.
Again, we must move and act with empathy. We are living in a world filled with selfishness and sexual perverseness. We must protect ourselves and most importantly—our children.
Beloved, my husband does not know this woman and he has never stepped out of our marriage. I will like to thank you all for your support and I am aware that there is a debate online about the credibility of the lady due to her profession.
Please be gentle with her. She may be spreading lies but she is still human.
God bless you. God bless the blogs perpetrating this evil, and God bless the young lady who has allowed the devil to use her to destroy a family.
Goodnight.
Pastor Mrs.
Did I forget to mention the thing that drew me to Tade in the first place, besides the convenience of his harmless
appearance? His voice. You need to hear it to understand.
The first time he spoke to me outside my father’s house after service it did something funny to my insides. I don’t want to blaspheme but his voice is golden, God-tainted.
And he seemed completely unaware of it.
When we were both in the university—he was studying Accounting at Ife and I joined him there to study Mass
Communication—the student unions regularly organised
debates between departments and that was where ‘shy’ Tade shone.
His voice was one part of the deal, but he had unbridled charisma. The seriousness that made him stiff off stage
became something commanding and authoritative on the stage. When he talked, people listened.
A year after we got married, I had our first child, Mayokun. Tade was managing a small clerical job in Yaba and things were tough. Without our parents, we couldn’t have made it through those first three years with two children. I often left them with my mother and worked as an assistant in a small radio station, scraping by.
One day I said to him, “Tade, I think the church is your calling.” I analysed my reasoning, told him why he would excel at it, and that he was the kind of man that should lead people. He looked at me with gratitude in his eyes and said he had been thinking the same thing. But he didn’t know if I wanted that life because of how I’d grown up.
“We won’t do things the way my father did,” I had said. While we both worked and raised our children, we built our
church. We had ten faithfuls at first, and then a hundred. We designed our logo together. Filled up our vision board with milestones and goalposts. Our church’s motto “Work for God and for yourself” came from him and surmised our experience at the time.
Two years later, after the birth of our last child and only daughter, he started earning better at an investment firm, and I took on a position as secretary at the local government office in Alimosho. It was a strategic choice. My job helped me find followers but it was also close to our children’s school and home.
It has taken thirteen years to build this church from the ground up, and while I help run it, Tade still has a job. I handle everything so he can step on that stage and shine like he was born to do.
Our main selling point, the reason why we have grown over the years, is my husband. We have everything we ever dreamed of, and more. We live in a six-bedroom mansion in the heart of Akowonjo, Egbeda, with a cook, driver and a gardener.
Our three children go to exclusive schools—Mayokun recently got accepted to an Ivy League school in America. Tade and I did this together, and there’s no way I will sit back and watch a nonentity destroy it all with her loose words.
As the weeks went by the scandal grew wings and added jetpack fuel. I had to sit through interviews she gave to all and sundry, watch her lower her overfilled eyelashes in false modesty, her overflowing cleavage clearly showing who she really is—an opportunist and a gold digger. I watched and read every single thing this girl said because knowing your enemy is the first step to destroying them.
“Mummy, you don’t have to do this,” Tade says as I walk into our bedroom at 11 p.m. I had just put the lid down on my MacBook in my home office after watching yet another video. I look at him and sigh. “It’s my job, Daddy Mayor.” I preferred using the nickname of our firstborn when referring to him in private. That way, he felt like my husband, the father of my children, like someone that still belonged to me and not the world.
“Is there anything I can do to help you? Just tell me and I will do it. Should I appear on camera denying the claims?” I sit down beside him and take off my shoes, rubbing the
soles of my feet. Even when I work from home, I dress the
part.
“No, there’s no need. People will twist everything you say and it will make things worse. Let me handle it. It’s my job.”
He puts an arm around my shoulder and pulls me close. My
mind wanders to the clip I had just watched. It is hard to believe the Tade that she described is the one next to me now.
She said he was “wild, unbridled and insatiable” and that is how I know she is lying. Even in the early days, Tade was quiet and reserved in bed. Now after twenty years, we only have sex once a week or whenever the Holy Spirit leads him. It is time my dear, let us go and celebrate the Lord in bed, he would often say before sex.
I feel sorry for the girl. Didn’t she know that a lady never speaks about such matters in public? Well, she was no lady but still, I wanted to snatch her from the screen, put her across my knees and spank decency, decorum and coyness into her.
Instead, I had watched with no expression with the PR team because I knew if I gave away a hint of distress, Tade and the church would suffer.
Tade removes his arm from my shoulder and kisses my cheek. He returns to his side of the bed and within minutes is fast asleep.
Fellow Nigerians,
God bless us all as we take time to read this letter. I have received criticism about my tone of familiarity in addressing you all so I hope the title “fellow Nigerians” sits well with you. I have also received letters asking that I sit with the young lady, and to read the excerpts from her forthcoming book.
On that issue, I will be granting an interview soon. It is safe to say that this young lady is exploiting every opportunity presented to her to ruin the institution and body of Christ. My husband does not know this woman. He has never met her and he has confirmed this to the church and myself publicly and privately.
This makes me wonder whether the church is not under heavy attack from the kingdom of darkness. I am beginning to fear for Christianity as a whole in Nigeria. Journalists, social media influencers and any individual with a subscription can and are using their voices to stamp out the voice of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I am grateful that there are so many people and believers that are standing with us during this crucial time. She is now asserting that the church is preventing her book from being sold. I ask how? This story came out two months ago and she already has a book about to be published? Is it possible that the public can see through the loop holes in her story themselves and have decided to keep silent?
The church will not prevent anyone or dissuade them from buying the book.
Please tune in on Saturday as I sit with my dear brother—brother Chidi to address the matter. My husband does not know this lady.
Only Jesus does and only Jesus will deliver her.
God’s blessings upon us all.
Pastor Mrs.
I have to hand it to this girl. Maybe I felt sorry for her for a moment, and I have definitely underestimated her, but whoever is helping her is some sort of marketing genius.
Before they have even released her cursed tome of shamelessness, the excerpts have been flying up and down social media and communication platforms. I know that all the church ladies, family and friends that have been supportive this whole time have read them. How? Their “Na wa o” now has a ring of sarcasm and mockery, the “God will handle this matter” sounds trite and condescending.
And by accusing the church of trying to silence her, she has caused people who might not have supported her to come over to her side.
There is a PDF file open now on my phone screen. The impressions from the tweet that I pulled it from is in the
millions. It describes some of the sexual encounter she had
with my husband. He tied my arms to the bedposts and spread my legs. He dipped his fingers into a bottle of oil which he called “the anointing oil that will break the yoke” and rubbed it on my clitoris and then he crawled in between my legs and whispered against my pussy.
“I have come to worship at your temple.” He started to lick me and then he grabbed my thighs, wrapping them around his neck.“I want to be delivered! Deliver me sister!”
I must confess I had never seen this kind of display in a man so I was unsure how to react. I just laid there
and stared up at the ceiling. He finally finished his self
exorcism and thrust his erect penis into me. As he moved in and out of me, he kept saying, “We are celebrating the Lord in bed.”
I place my phone face down on my desk when I read that last line. I look up at the ceiling, but it does not stem the tears in my eyes. The girl might be a prostitute, but she is not a liar.
Is it accurate to say that I have caught Tade cheating on two occasions, if he doesn’t know?
The first time was a year and a half into our marriage. I was supposed to be away for two weeks in Mushin to see a bereaved aunt. A week into the visit, the locust beans smell in her house and her constant whining drove me back home early.
Mayokun was sleeping on my back and I had come in through the kitchen door because I had some foodstuff to offload. Tade’s moans floated from the bedroom. For a moment I doubted that those sounds could be coming from my house, not to talk of my husband. I tiptoed to the bedroom and put my ear against the door. The creaking bed springs and squelching of sexual organs painted a picture confirming the impossible.
My fingers hovered by the door handle. Hot rage and humiliation surged through me. I wanted to jump into that room and claw his eyes out. Then I remembered that Mayokun was asleep on my back. Whatever I saw if I walked into that room, my innocent child would also see. I backed away silently and fled.
At the bus stop nearby I sat on a bench as my heart raced and my eyes darted about in confusion. How long had he been doing this? What did I do wrong? Maybe it was because we hadn’t been having sex regularly since Mayokun was born. But he had been so understanding as I waited to heal from the stitches from his birth. I placed a hand on my chest to stem the dull ache that suffused my heart and let the tears fall.
After thirty minutes, I went back home. A young woman snuck out of the front door just as I approached our home. She had all the tell-tale signs of what she was—a prostitute. She was nothing like me.
When I walked into the house, it was as if I had imagined the whole thing. Tade was so happy to see us even though we were home unexpectedly. I wanted to say something, but the words never came. So, I pretended not to know. And believed it was a fluke.
The second time was five years ago, late at night in his office. I had gone to surprise him because his firm had just completed a project he had supervised. He told me over the phone that he had some things to wrap up and he would be home late. The office complex was deserted when the security guard let me in. Later, I would wonder if the guard knew, and if he laughed at me for being naïve.
Upstairs, the door to my husband’s office was slightly ajar and for the first time, I got a clear view of Tade having sex with someone else. He had her on his office table, her cheap dress pulled all the way up and bunched around her chest to expose skin the colour of an over-ripe guava. His hands held her legs apart at the knees. Her French manicured nails dug into his shoulders, the knuckles of her fingers three shades darker than her skin tone. Pooled around his feet were his expensive tailored trousers. His buttocks contracted as he slammed into her like a demon from hell.
Again, I walked away and didn’t breathe a word of what I had seen to a single soul. After that day, I kept spies around him, who informed me of his whereabouts. When I got no reports of such a scene after all this time, I thought he had finally come to his senses. I was wrong.
I’m not a saint, neither am I a robot. It hurts to act like I don’t know that the man I have given everything that a woman can give repays that devotion by chasing such a cheap high. I have wondered whether this peculiar habit is an addiction. I have fasted and prayed and I thought that something had finally shifted, and that one day, Tade would see me once again as just Evelyn, not Mummy, not some untouchable anointed wife.
I wait until the day before her book launch to serve her my last card. It is the CCTV footage of our family praying together on the date and the time that she claimed they had met. Of course, it was doctored, a deep-fake. The team doesn’t even know about the IT guy I found from Russia whose service I paid thousands of dollars for.
Tade had gone out that night, but I didn’t doubt him until I read the excerpt. Yes, he has lied to me, cheated, but I’ve told you, what we have is beyond understanding and will not be allowed to fall.
Do you think it is easy to be a pastor’s wife?
How can you know what it means to be the partner of a man with a divine calling, made of flesh but instructed to lead with the spirit?
Any ordinary wife has their work cut out for them in loving their husbands, in serving them for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, but a pastor’s wife has to help her husband maintain his holy anointing, and to do so with an invisible hand.
“I didn’t do it. Mummy, do you believe me?” How long has it been since I became the mummy of our organisation, the mother in our marriage? I can’t remember. It feels like forever since I had the pleasure, the intimacy of hearing my own name fall from my husband’s lips—my real name, not Mummy, sometimes followed by one of the children’s names.
I look at him now. His pleading eyes and downturned mouth. His hair is impeccably groomed, his salt and pepper beard neatly trimmed. We have been married for over twenty years. Our love has gone beyond compassion, beyond butterflies in the stomach and settled into a form of kinship.
Tade and I are members of an elite, exclusive club, we couldn’t be closer if we had shared some kind of blood covenant. “Of course, I believe you. I am working with Demilade from PR, my press release will be on our Facebook page within the hour.”
He smiles broadly, it reaches his eyes and brightens his aura. He takes two steps towards me and when he’s close enough, reaches out and rubs my arms. Up and down.Three
times. He stops when I pick up my notepad from the table to look over my handwritten letter. It is meant for the members of our church and the wicked, judgmental general public.
My dear hopefuls,
It is with a heavy heart that I write to you. As you go about your daily activities, please do not let the devil take hold of your mind with fake news. Two weeks ago, an article was released accusing pastor of sleepingbwith a young lady on the 19th of June 2020.
The young lady claims that my husband, our daddy in the Lord, picked her up from Festac, took her to a hotel close by to have inappropriate relations with her. She says she is
coming forward because she saw Daddy on television preaching and she didn’t think that it was right for an adulterer to be the one to guide people on their spiritual journeys.
I am not saying this young lady is a liar but on the date that she claims they met, our daddy in the Lord and I were in the house with our three children rounding up a three-day weekly fast. We always round up this particular fast with a prayer and vigil which is mostly heralded by our daddy.
That evening, I led the prayer because Daddy had to rest his voice for the next day—we had a retreat for pastors all over Lagos.However, throughout the vigil, Daddy was with me,encouraging me and making sure that I never felt alone.
Hopefuls, I don’t think you can know a person completely but if my husband—our daddy in the Lord was a twin, I think his wife of twenty years would know. Unless the young lady met my husband’s long-lost brother that we have never heard of, then her claim of staying with Daddy throughout the night is false.
The society finds it easier to judge leaders— religious, political, academic leaders but does anyone ever stop to think about the consequences of their judgement on these families? This media organisation that published this article, Instablog, has had no sympathy for my family and I. Otherwise they would have reached out to us to confirm the young lady’s claims.
My children are being mocked in school as the ones with the father that likes ashewos, the church lines have been ringing nonstop and our daddy in the Lord seems to be struggling through all of these because he is human. This is why I decided to write this open letter to you all. To ask that you remember that we are human beings. We are flesh and blood.
We are not equipped to survive social media slander. I ask in the name of the most high that the blogs take down this article and that we stop attacking the church which is the body of Christ.
The young lady in question is a woman of the world who mostly moves at night. Is it not possible that under the influence of narcotics, she might have mixed up her
sightings? Let us remember that only our Lord is blameless and without fault. This young lady may have just been seeing wrongly.
She describes a car that is similar to that of our daddy in the Lord, which I ask—is our daddy the only man in Lagos with that car? Is the car manufacturer only making cars for my family? Again, I am not condemning the young lady because the kingdom of God allows for all types of people, in fact, we look forward to welcoming her in our fold and sharing the good news of the Bible with her.
Finally, please keep my family, the young lady and I in your prayers as we all navigate through this difficult time. I pray that the Lord continues to stay with usespecially during these perilous times.
God bless you.
Pastor Mrs Evelyn Oriade
I know what you’re thinking. You think I’m wrong in supporting my husband, abi? Is it not a cliché at this point to accuse powerful men of scandalous things? Ordinary people enjoy the spectacle of watching those with a platform, a brand, a pulpit, fall.
But I told you, I know Tade. I knew him when he was a gangly twenty-two-year-old with a concave chest and a beardless face. We met in my father’s small parlour church. I was eighteen. Although my father’s foray into evangelism didn’t pan out, my burgeoning friendship with the slightly older boy who had just moved into our area with his family deepened.
Even then he was bookish and serious, while I was only pretending to be because of my strict parents. I knew that he would be safe to be around, and my parents wouldn’t question us spending all our time together. While he was timid and reserved, I was wild and carefree.
The first time I roughly planted my mouth on his and vigorously rubbed the area around his crotch he leaped away from me in surprise. “Sister Evelyn!” He swiped the back of his hand across his mouth and scrambled to his feet.
We were alone in his parent’s two-bedroomed house, studying at the dining table. There was no light and I was tired of waiting for him to pick up on every signal I had sent him before that moment when I took matters into my own hands.
“I’m not your sister. Besides, you’re older than me.” He backed away as I stood up and walked towards him. He muttered something about this being wrong. So, I said okay, I wouldn’t do it again. But I did, two weeks later. This time we were in my house, downstairs by the door. We had a maid back then, and she was in the kitchen singing Igbo gospel songs. I used her singing voice to judge her location in the house, so when he turned around to say goodbye to me, I kissed him again.
His back was pressed against the small section of the wall behind the door. I was gentler this time, softer. He didn’t push me away and his lips closed warmly against mine. After that, we kissed every time we were alone. Falling against each other with fevered passion. My rubbing against his groin became more practiced, and I was rewarded with a bulge that grew with each caress.
One day, I couldn’t take it anymore so I hiked up my skirt and got on top of him. I found the sweet spot between our bodies and I rocked my hips back and forth, the thin material of my underwear and the cotton of his trousers moistening. He moaned hotly against my neck, his hands fondling my breasts as he whispered my name over and over. Evelyn. Evelyn.
Those moments felt like liquid ecstasy. But he never allowed us to go beyond that until we were married three years later.
So, you see? That prostitute is lying and she will soon be cast back into the pit of hell where she crawled out from.
The story did not die. I should not have been surprised. Gossip these days is a hot commodity, a quick path to wealth on the internet highway. In the old days, rumours would circulate among friends and family in your area, in the worst-case scenario, it might reach another local government area or state. These days, bad news travels at the speed of light, leaping from one blog post in Lagos to London within seconds.
Several blogs reposted the original article and within a week, the girl whose name I have refused to learn or remember had sat down with journalists detailing her alleged one-night encounter with my husband. I compared the metrics of my Facebook post and retweets of the church’s official response to the bloggers and saw that we were losing. Badly.
What? Are you surprised that I’m talking about losing? Do you think this is an ethical or moral war that this girl is waging against my husband? Of course not. This thing is all about PR.
Even though she is a liar and a prostitute, the truth is, in this social media era we are in, the only thing that matters is who people believe, who they sympathise with. And right now, I am losing, but I won’t be for long.
The task of being a pastor’s wife is multi-layered, like an onion. I have skills and weapons that you would not believe. Let’s begin with my stylist. She makes sure that I am dressed head to toe in clothes and accessories that exude wealth with a hint of humility, outfits that skim my curves in a way that is attractive but not sleazy. My toenails are polished but not French manicured.
I stick to warm colours and pastels, no Ruby Woo for me. And what about social media? Our church’s biggest audience is on Facebook, the masses, that’s why my first press release went there. I use simple, common language to appeal to a sense of connection. We are all the same, after all.
On Twitter, I target the intelligentsia, I know the buzzwords and throw them around. Empowerment. Patriarchy. Community. These days I keep the comment section locked because I don’t have time to argue, just inform.
Then we haveour PR outfit, a staff of five including a videographer. They film and edit our events, make sure to capture the special magic of our church services, with a splattering of intimate behind-the-scenes moments appearing here and there.
It could be a shot of Tade rehearsing a sermon, or one of our children giving him a hug when he gets off the stage. It broadens our appeal, you see, humanises us. These videos go on our YouTube channel. The team is hard at work now in the event of the so-called scandal to upload our latest service.
We worked with an external crisis manager to make sure it hit the right note. Not too defensive, not sober enough to look like an admission of guilt. I manage them all. I haven’t even mentioned our social media interns, the admin team or the finance department.
Do you see what I mean?
I’m sure you’re being cynical now. Why does spreading the word of God need so much machinery behind it? Is this the Gospel or an enterprise, right? Look around you. The world
has changed and will continue to do so.
Are Tade and I supposed to don sandals and robes beating drums up and down Lagos with dusty feet and cracked voices? Does that sound dignified to you? Would you even buy car insurance from someone who looks like that, how much more the word of God?
Anyway, I have decided to issue my second press release in this matter. Me and this girl have only just started.
Good evening my brothers and sisters, I understand that a couple of groups had an issue with being addressed as hopefuls. I apologise, I used that term with the purest intention. However, since I am aware that many people are uncomfortable with it, I will refrain from such terms. I will now use “brothers and sisters”, because I believe we are connected through Christ, and God is our father.
It has come to our attention that the young lady in question has released an audio tape of her exchange with our daddy in the Lord, I am also aware of the fact that she has been offered a book deal— ‘My life, and the Night with Pastor’ where she will detail her supposed sexual encounter with our daddy.
I am reading all the comments on social media asking me to come out and have a sit down with the young lady. I apologise in advance as I will not be able to do that. The Bible says that we must flee from all appearances of sin and we should not be equally yoked with unbelievers.
I strongly believe sitting with a woman of the night is an insult to our Lord and Saviour. I stand by my husband and I am sad to see people doubt the word of a man of God and his wife. What will it profit us to lie? If my husband truly slept with the young lady, he will come out, repent and retire from the church.
This is the rule that has been laid down. There is no severe punishment for adultery because Jesus Christ has paid for our sins so why will Daddy lie if there is no punishment? Yes, it may affect our public image but that can be fixed through Jesus Christ and rehabilitation.
My husband did not sleep with the lady in question.The tape recording may have been doctored; we live in a world where technology can and will do most things. What is voice copying in a world filled with photoshop, autotune and filters?
It is possible this woman found a way to recreate our daddy’s voice. It is also shameful that a publishing firm agreed to publish a book like this. They didn’t think about the children that would have access to the pornography in
the book or the families that would be affected.
Again, we must move and act with empathy. We are living in a world filled with selfishness and sexual perverseness. We must protect ourselves and most importantly—our children.
Beloved, my husband does not know this woman and he has never stepped out of our marriage. I will like to thank you all for your support and I am aware that there is a debate online about the credibility of the lady due to her profession.
Please be gentle with her. She may be spreading lies but she is still human.
God bless you. God bless the blogs perpetrating this evil, and God bless the young lady who has allowed the devil to use her to destroy a family.
Goodnight.
Pastor Mrs.
Did I forget to mention the thing that drew me to Tade in the first place, besides the convenience of his harmless
appearance? His voice. You need to hear it to understand.
The first time he spoke to me outside my father’s house after service it did something funny to my insides. I don’t want to blaspheme but his voice is golden, God-tainted.
And he seemed completely unaware of it.
When we were both in the university—he was studying Accounting at Ife and I joined him there to study Mass
Communication—the student unions regularly organised
debates between departments and that was where ‘shy’ Tade shone.
His voice was one part of the deal, but he had unbridled charisma. The seriousness that made him stiff off stage
became something commanding and authoritative on the stage. When he talked, people listened.
A year after we got married, I had our first child, Mayokun. Tade was managing a small clerical job in Yaba and things were tough. Without our parents, we couldn’t have made it through those first three years with two children. I often left them with my mother and worked as an assistant in a small radio station, scraping by.
One day I said to him, “Tade, I think the church is your calling.” I analysed my reasoning, told him why he would excel at it, and that he was the kind of man that should lead people. He looked at me with gratitude in his eyes and said he had been thinking the same thing. But he didn’t know if I wanted that life because of how I’d grown up.
“We won’t do things the way my father did,” I had said. While we both worked and raised our children, we built our
church. We had ten faithfuls at first, and then a hundred. We designed our logo together. Filled up our vision board with milestones and goalposts. Our church’s motto “Work for God and for yourself” came from him and surmised our experience at the time.
Two years later, after the birth of our last child and only daughter, he started earning better at an investment firm, and I took on a position as secretary at the local government office in Alimosho. It was a strategic choice. My job helped me find followers but it was also close to our children’s school and home.
It has taken thirteen years to build this church from the ground up, and while I help run it, Tade still has a job. I handle everything so he can step on that stage and shine like he was born to do.
Our main selling point, the reason why we have grown over the years, is my husband. We have everything we ever dreamed of, and more. We live in a six-bedroom mansion in the heart of Akowonjo, Egbeda, with a cook, driver and a gardener.
Our three children go to exclusive schools—Mayokun recently got accepted to an Ivy League school in America. Tade and I did this together, and there’s no way I will sit back and watch a nonentity destroy it all with her loose words.
As the weeks went by the scandal grew wings and added jetpack fuel. I had to sit through interviews she gave to all and sundry, watch her lower her overfilled eyelashes in false modesty, her overflowing cleavage clearly showing who she really is—an opportunist and a gold digger. I watched and read every single thing this girl said because knowing your enemy is the first step to destroying them.
“Mummy, you don’t have to do this,” Tade says as I walk into our bedroom at 11 p.m. I had just put the lid down on my MacBook in my home office after watching yet another video. I look at him and sigh. “It’s my job, Daddy Mayor.” I preferred using the nickname of our firstborn when referring to him in private. That way, he felt like my husband, the father of my children, like someone that still belonged to me and not the world.
“Is there anything I can do to help you? Just tell me and I will do it. Should I appear on camera denying the claims?” I sit down beside him and take off my shoes, rubbing the
soles of my feet. Even when I work from home, I dress the
part.
“No, there’s no need. People will twist everything you say and it will make things worse. Let me handle it. It’s my job.”
He puts an arm around my shoulder and pulls me close. My
mind wanders to the clip I had just watched. It is hard to believe the Tade that she described is the one next to me now.
She said he was “wild, unbridled and insatiable” and that is how I know she is lying. Even in the early days, Tade was quiet and reserved in bed. Now after twenty years, we only have sex once a week or whenever the Holy Spirit leads him. It is time my dear, let us go and celebrate the Lord in bed, he would often say before sex.
I feel sorry for the girl. Didn’t she know that a lady never speaks about such matters in public? Well, she was no lady but still, I wanted to snatch her from the screen, put her across my knees and spank decency, decorum and coyness into her.
Instead, I had watched with no expression with the PR team because I knew if I gave away a hint of distress, Tade and the church would suffer.
Tade removes his arm from my shoulder and kisses my cheek. He returns to his side of the bed and within minutes is fast asleep.
Fellow Nigerians,
God bless us all as we take time to read this letter. I have received criticism about my tone of familiarity in addressing you all so I hope the title “fellow Nigerians” sits well with you. I have also received letters asking that I sit with the young lady, and to read the excerpts from her forthcoming book.
On that issue, I will be granting an interview soon. It is safe to say that this young lady is exploiting every opportunity presented to her to ruin the institution and body of Christ. My husband does not know this woman. He has never met her and he has confirmed this to the church and myself publicly and privately.
This makes me wonder whether the church is not under heavy attack from the kingdom of darkness. I am beginning to fear for Christianity as a whole in Nigeria. Journalists, social media influencers and any individual with a subscription can and are using their voices to stamp out the voice of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I am grateful that there are so many people and believers that are standing with us during this crucial time. She is now asserting that the church is preventing her book from being sold. I ask how? This story came out two months ago and she already has a book about to be published? Is it possible that the public can see through the loop holes in her story themselves and have decided to keep silent?
The church will not prevent anyone or dissuade them from buying the book.
Please tune in on Saturday as I sit with my dear brother—brother Chidi to address the matter. My husband does not know this lady.
Only Jesus does and only Jesus will deliver her.
God’s blessings upon us all.
Pastor Mrs.
I have to hand it to this girl. Maybe I felt sorry for her for a moment, and I have definitely underestimated her, but whoever is helping her is some sort of marketing genius.
Before they have even released her cursed tome of shamelessness, the excerpts have been flying up and down social media and communication platforms. I know that all the church ladies, family and friends that have been supportive this whole time have read them. How? Their “Na wa o” now has a ring of sarcasm and mockery, the “God will handle this matter” sounds trite and condescending.
And by accusing the church of trying to silence her, she has caused people who might not have supported her to come over to her side.
There is a PDF file open now on my phone screen. The impressions from the tweet that I pulled it from is in the
millions. It describes some of the sexual encounter she had
with my husband. He tied my arms to the bedposts and spread my legs. He dipped his fingers into a bottle of oil which he called “the anointing oil that will break the yoke” and rubbed it on my clitoris and then he crawled in between my legs and whispered against my pussy.
“I have come to worship at your temple.” He started to lick me and then he grabbed my thighs, wrapping them around his neck.“I want to be delivered! Deliver me sister!”
I must confess I had never seen this kind of display in a man so I was unsure how to react. I just laid there
and stared up at the ceiling. He finally finished his self
exorcism and thrust his erect penis into me. As he moved in and out of me, he kept saying, “We are celebrating the Lord in bed.”
I place my phone face down on my desk when I read that last line. I look up at the ceiling, but it does not stem the tears in my eyes. The girl might be a prostitute, but she is not a liar.
Is it accurate to say that I have caught Tade cheating on two occasions, if he doesn’t know?
The first time was a year and a half into our marriage. I was supposed to be away for two weeks in Mushin to see a bereaved aunt. A week into the visit, the locust beans smell in her house and her constant whining drove me back home early.
Mayokun was sleeping on my back and I had come in through the kitchen door because I had some foodstuff to offload. Tade’s moans floated from the bedroom. For a moment I doubted that those sounds could be coming from my house, not to talk of my husband. I tiptoed to the bedroom and put my ear against the door. The creaking bed springs and squelching of sexual organs painted a picture confirming the impossible.
My fingers hovered by the door handle. Hot rage and humiliation surged through me. I wanted to jump into that room and claw his eyes out. Then I remembered that Mayokun was asleep on my back. Whatever I saw if I walked into that room, my innocent child would also see. I backed away silently and fled.
At the bus stop nearby I sat on a bench as my heart raced and my eyes darted about in confusion. How long had he been doing this? What did I do wrong? Maybe it was because we hadn’t been having sex regularly since Mayokun was born. But he had been so understanding as I waited to heal from the stitches from his birth. I placed a hand on my chest to stem the dull ache that suffused my heart and let the tears fall.
After thirty minutes, I went back home. A young woman snuck out of the front door just as I approached our home. She had all the tell-tale signs of what she was—a prostitute. She was nothing like me.
When I walked into the house, it was as if I had imagined the whole thing. Tade was so happy to see us even though we were home unexpectedly. I wanted to say something, but the words never came. So, I pretended not to know. And believed it was a fluke.
The second time was five years ago, late at night in his office. I had gone to surprise him because his firm had just completed a project he had supervised. He told me over the phone that he had some things to wrap up and he would be home late. The office complex was deserted when the security guard let me in. Later, I would wonder if the guard knew, and if he laughed at me for being naïve.
Upstairs, the door to my husband’s office was slightly ajar and for the first time, I got a clear view of Tade having sex with someone else. He had her on his office table, her cheap dress pulled all the way up and bunched around her chest to expose skin the colour of an over-ripe guava. His hands held her legs apart at the knees. Her French manicured nails dug into his shoulders, the knuckles of her fingers three shades darker than her skin tone. Pooled around his feet were his expensive tailored trousers. His buttocks contracted as he slammed into her like a demon from hell.
Again, I walked away and didn’t breathe a word of what I had seen to a single soul. After that day, I kept spies around him, who informed me of his whereabouts. When I got no reports of such a scene after all this time, I thought he had finally come to his senses. I was wrong.
I’m not a saint, neither am I a robot. It hurts to act like I don’t know that the man I have given everything that a woman can give repays that devotion by chasing such a cheap high. I have wondered whether this peculiar habit is an addiction. I have fasted and prayed and I thought that something had finally shifted, and that one day, Tade would see me once again as just Evelyn, not Mummy, not some untouchable anointed wife.
I wait until the day before her book launch to serve her my last card. It is the CCTV footage of our family praying together on the date and the time that she claimed they had met. Of course, it was doctored, a deep-fake. The team doesn’t even know about the IT guy I found from Russia whose service I paid thousands of dollars for.
Tade had gone out that night, but I didn’t doubt him until I read the excerpt. Yes, he has lied to me, cheated, but I’ve told you, what we have is beyond understanding and will not be allowed to fall.
#youhaventreadit
#DamilareKuku
#ilovebooks
Comments
Post a Comment