https://punchng.com/father-48-wives-always-took-oath-every-six-months-tony-momoh/



Former National Chairman of the defunct Congress for Progressives Change , Prince Tony Momoh , in this interview with LEKE BAIYEWU , talks about his childhood as an Auchi , Edo State prince ; and his career as a teacher and a journalist who rose to become an editor and manager at the Daily Times .

Looking back in retrospect, would you say you are fulfilled in life ?

Oh yes! I am fully fulfilled because nothing happens by accident. Everybody should bear responsibility for whatever they do. What you do at any time is a sowing of seeds , which will grow and ripen for your harvest . So , everything happening to you at any time is a harvest of what you did before, which bore fruit that you are reaping .
As the 165 th child of King Momoh I of Auchi , Edo State , how would you describe your childhood in the palace ?
We grew up in a family of seven compounds and the compounds were headed by women . The most senior wives of our father headed the compounds; the youngest wives lived with them while the middle - level wives lived on their own .
So the wives were graded?
Yes . My mother was one of the youngest ones and she lived in the compound whose male head was Kessington Momoh , who was the most popular politician in the Momoh family and was an Action Group minister who followed ( late Chief Obafemi ) Awolowo.

All of us in the compound, growing up , knew all the women – about 48 of them – to be our mothers. We couldn ’t differentiate between the women . Every woman in my father ’s house was a mother to every child in my father ’s house . Every six months , they ( the wives) took an oath not to do anything to undermine the husband , the children or one another .

Was the oath traditional or with the Bible or the Quran?

It was a traditional oath .

Was that the religion of the family?

No . Between 1921 and 1926 , my father , as the district head of Kukuruku Division , spread Islam far and wide . But this oath was administered internally in the palace. We were told and we grew up to believe that if you did anything to undermine your brother , you would drop dead . Doing ‘anything ’ include thinking evil of the person, going to another person to prepare anything to undermine someone or even speaking evil of the person. Therefore , that followed us in life . I have never done anything to harm anybody by going to someone to prepare ‘juju ’ for me to undermine anybody . Since I started journalism and writing in 1962 , I have written thousands of pieces, I have never used a curse word on anybody . Never! I have never been taken up for libel because I undermined anybody . We all grew up to honour women because women , in the knowledge in which I stand now, are spiritually higher than men and they should be respected , honoured and protected .

During the oath -taking period , was there any instance where a member of the family suffered or died for plotting evil against another member of the family?
How would I know ? People were dying every day and people were being born every day . At the end of the day , my father had about 48 wives and 257 children between 1903 and 1944 . I wouldn ’t know if anybody had evil thoughts about anybody and dropped dead . Incidentally , there was a clear case , which would point to the direction of the question you asked . Two of our brothers belonged to different groups , struggling for a political position . And they had people from the family who were supporting them and it, therefore , brought bad blood among them . Whether you believe it or not, there was a way our father was always intervening . If there was anything wrong with the family, he would ask that the family’s posterity be put back on track. Those brothers died one after the other and many of their followers in town died terrible deaths

**Read more on the link.. no time to copy

Wow

165 out 257

His Father was the real deal. He would have made a good president to be able to manage his large family

That is to say 3/4 of your brothers and sisters are bastard..