Before posting into this thread , I don't claim to be the writer of the write up hat will posted in this thread but that of amebo tori avenue.








Still my humble self : dammywapes

Let's start with 'Agbero'


Agbero (1)





S-L-L-A-A-A-A-A-P!!!

I don’t know what landed first; his hard palm slapping my face or the thud of his briefcase as he dropped it inside the doorway as he lunged at me.

I screamed and recoiled from the force of the blow, my left cheek stinging from where he’d hit me. In my mouth I could taste blood – salty, watery blood – that was now beginning to drip down my cut lip.

(how una dey?)

Agbero (2)





“ Useless woman…leaving me outside to get wet!”

It wasn’t raining that much. It certainly wasn’t a downpour; just a light drizzle.

I had been in the kitchen, cooking, and didn’t hear the doorbell the first time it rang. On his second ring I heard it and came running out to open the door. I wasn’t expecting him back until late so I was surprised to see him standing there...

(just like b4 u pass)

Agbero 3



angry with a few droplets of rain on him.

Dutifully, as a wife should be, I greeted him, reached to take his briefcase and usher him in.

Instead, he slapped me. His right hand had shot up with the alacrity of a lightning bolt and struck me across the face before I could throw up my arms in defence.
He stood there glaring and towering over my pitiful form as I lay cowering in the corner of the..

Agbero 4



in the corner of the door frame. Knowing him he would lash out again – a punch, a kick or a belting – he was that sort of man; a wife-beater.

They warned me when we were courting that he was not a man to marry; beneath the façade of the loving and caring hid a venomous cobra waiting to strike at the slightest provocation. A woman in love is often referred to as a fool with her head in the...

with her head in the clouds, deaf and blind to reason and advice.

All those who warned me about him I mistook for jealous haters.Afterall he was a handsome clever graduate who worked in a bank. They were envious I could land myself such a coveted big fish while they went out with the dregs of society – labourers, small time traders and drivers. I even began to suspect they were trying to grab...

Agbero 6







I even began to suspect they were trying to grab my man.

By the time he came to ask for my hand in marriage I was already four months pregnant. My parents, aware of the rumours and gossip, reluctantly agreed to our union.

When my father finally walked me up the aisle, a stern look on his face, he whispered quietly in my ear.” If he lays a finger on you tell me right away”

Agbero 7








“ I will Papa”, I whispered back. Of course I didn’t. He had already started to beat me then. But it wasn’t his fault.

It was always my fault. I knew he had a hidden temper but I always seem to get on the wrong side of him. Like today. If I had been more attentive I would have heard the doorbell the first time it rang and he wouldn’t have got rain on his expensive suit and shoes...

Agbero 8






and he wouldn’t have slapped me.

It was my fault.

Kemi, my best friend, thinks I’m taking the blame for his mistakes – stupid she calls me – and I shouldn’t. He should be responsible for his own actions and should seek professional help.

I don’t know why she would say something like that. He doesn’t need professional help. He just needs me to love him more and stop making him angry..

Agbero 9





But what would she know. I’m married and she’s not. She’s just jealous.

And so the beatings continued, sometimes without me ‘asking for it’ as he would so eloquently put it. We’ve been married for five years now. I’ve borne him two wonderful children, a boy and a girl, and somehow I have to stay in this marriage and salvage it.
But I still didn’t tell my father anything....

Agbero 10








There was crying from the bedroom; Tolu , the youngest, home today from nursery with an upset tummy, had woken up from her nap and was wondering where I was.

I turned to get up.

“ Did I give you permission to get up?”, his foot hit my ribcage and I nearly passed out. Before I could get my breath back he was on top of me raining blow after blow on me whilst at the same time kicking me..

Agbero 11






He was like an enraged kickboxer going for Olympic gold.

Writhing in pain I screamed my head off as each blow hit me, my screams masking my daughters cries for her mom. Out of the corner of eye I could see her ambling her way out of the bedroom making her way towards the fracas. At nearly three years old there wasn’t much she could do.

But she did.

As I was cowardly fending off his blows...

Agbero 12





As I was cowardly fending off his blows, without fighting back, Tolu, crying too, launched herself at her father. She was tinnier than David and he was much bigger than Goliath but that didn’t deter her.

“ Leave mummy alone…leave mummy…”, she cried before resorting to the only weapon a kid her age knew how to use effectively.

She bit him.

He yelped in pain as she sank her teeth into the..

Agbero 13





He yelped in pain as she sank her teeth into the soft flesh of his hand ; the same hand that seconds later would hit her hard across the face, sending her sprawling over the carpet.

Seeing him hit her gave me the strength that had previously deserted me. I launched myself upon him, kicking and clawing. He could hit me all he wants but not my daughter.

If it wasn’t for the timely intervention..

Agbero 14






If it wasn’t for the timely intervention of a neighbour he would have killed me.

Mr Bayo, our next door neighbour, saw us fighting as he got out of his car and came charging to my rescue.

Heavily built, like a house, he stepped in between us and pushed my husband back and off me, restraining him before he could inflict anymore damage.

“ That’s enough!”, shouted Mr Bayo, his powerful arms..

Agbero 15







“ That’s enough!”, shouted Mr Bayo, his powerful arms keeping us apart.

Like a referee keeping two prized fighters apart, he shepherd us into the living room where he sat us apart, facing each other; I on one side nursing my bruises and him on the other still fuming.

“ Useless woman…”, he thundered from where he sat,”… I should have listened to my mother and married an educated woman!…

Agbero 16






…Look at you school cert leaver…illiterate!”

He spat out the word ‘illiterate’ as if it was a distasteful piece of phlegm. He always uses it in his defence as if my lack of a university education was the bane of all his problems.

“ Do you think I went to Oxford University in England to obtain an MBA in finance  to come and marry a disrespectful useless wife like you ?”

He then launched..

Agbero 17






He then launched into a monologue of how he spent ten years in the U.K washing dishes, scrubbing toilets and doing security work so he could earn a coveted first and second degree.

“…in my office there are plenty fine women with proper education I can marry…”

It’s not the first time he’s said this. Sometimes I wonder why he doesn’t. If it’s a woman with a university degree he wants he should..

Agbero 18






If it’s a woman with a university degree he wants he should get one and then we’ll see what his excuse for beating her up will be.

But he does work hard. He leaves home early in the morning and doesn’t come back till late at night. Because he has a good degree and education he works in the head office of a bank as an analyst. All the calculations and computations he has to do stress him out...

Agbero 19







I think this is what makes him angry and prompts him to lash out.

Mr Bayo managed to calm him down and after joining us for dinner and a few drinks he later went home.

As soon as our mediator was gone my husband silently headed for the bedroom, slamming the door shut after him.

I could, later, hear him mumbling to himself before getting into bed, the springs creaking, as he lay down...

Agbero 20







as he lay down switching the lights off.

As a precaution I spent the night in the kids room ; better to be safe than sorry.

The next afternoon Mrs Bayo came over to see me. Her husband had told her what happened the day before and she popped over for a heart-to-heart girlie chat.

We sat in the kitchen talking.

“ No man can lay his hands on me”, she was saying matter-of-factly...