Armed Wedding Crashers

ARMED WEDDING CRASHERS

“Hmmm!” I shuddered again. “These are perilous times.” Yes, it is a line in one of Shakespeare’s legendary plays.
After my experience of June the 9th, 2007, I don’t know exactly what my attitude to attending weddings their invitation cards bear my name would be like.
We all know that Lagos City’s traffic is second to none in the whole wide world. It is a man-hour killer. And one’s safety is not guaranteed most especially when one’s car window is wound down. The heat can be enervating most times as the temperature can sometimes be as high as 36 degrees Celsius. Knowing how the economy have gone stupid, it is not every resident that can afford brand new cars with air-conditioner and other trappings of luxury on wheels. Most prospering residents go for the affordable imported secondhand cars popularly called tokunbo. Monstrous traffic congestion to Lagos City residents who pride themselves as Lagosians affords them the opportunity and time to pause in their maddening haste to buy anything one can imagine - from toothbrush to electric kettle. For most Lagosians, daytime hours are never enough for them to achieve all their wishes. Therefore, they always would wound down their car window glasses for fresh air and make impulse purchases while in traffic.
So on this 9th day of June 2007, I made haste as I drove against traffic to get home in order to meet up with the wedding reception of my Masters’ class classmate. He hah insisted that since I wouldn’t make the church solemnization ceremony where he would tie the nuptials with his wife that I should endeavour to make the reception. This is so considering the fact that I work six hours on Saturdays to make ends meet. As the celebrant is someone I have a lot of respect for, I promise I’ll make the reception.
I quickly took a bath and picked my car key after putting on my brown 3-piece suit and a splash of cologne and left in haste for the venue of the wedding reception. On getting to the expressway leading to Murtala Mohammed International Airport, I noticed that the traffic had started building up. That was strange on a Saturday. Time was 2.35 p.m. With every progress made, the traffic became more unnerving. Within time my legs and joints began to ache me out of frequent use of the pedals. Yes my car is not automatic.
Eventually, I asked a mobile hawker what the cause of the traffic snarl was and he told me the president had just used the expressway some moments ago on his way back to the federal capital territory Abuja. Therefore, traffic was stopped for close to forty minutes against other road users. It became understandable to me. Whenever there is a little hitch, owing to the high density of car users in Lagos, traffic will snowball out of control of the traffic wardens.
To my disbelief, I spent close to an hour before I could get to the venue of the wedding reception on a journey of less than fifteen minutes.
Getting a space to pack my car took me ten minutes before I could secure a space. It was well attended an event, I noticed.
I could hardly figure out a recognizable face as I walked round looking for a place to sit down in the open arena. Eventually, I was offered a place to sit down by a beautiful lady who was sitting in company of four other males. I observed the wedding reception was about to be wrapped up. From the programme of order of events, I observed it was time for the couple’s dance. Thee were many gift items from guests packed behind the celebrants’ table.
In Nigeria, it is our tradition to spray celebrants of most occasions with naira notes despite the Central Bank’s campaign against this age-long tradition and threat of prosecution of its violators.
For over forty-five minutes, guests were on top of it. There were naira notes all around the newest dancing couple that they threaded on crisp naira notes.
To my chagrin, two minutes after the couple’s dance was brought to an end, a group of seven good-looking well-dressed men came out from under one of the canopies and walked up to the high table and released a volley of gunshots. The sight of such sophisticated weapons they wielded was enough to make many mortals faint.
The stampede was instantaneous. I ducked under the table when more gunshots were being released and crawled on all fours as I look for a way out of the wedding reception turned robbery scene. Emptied cartridges were falling all around me. Frightened guests were tripping and falling over themselves. The ladies fared worst. Some of them were running and screaming without knowing where to run to safety and ended up breaking their legs. The robbery incident lasted for over fifteen minutes without police coming to our rescue. The robbers left with the money and gift items presented to the couple in a stolen SUV of a guest.
There were many injured guests. Some were hit by bullet and taken to a nearby hospital for immediate medical attention. My friend had left the issue of security out of his plans and he paid dearly for it.
When I got to where my car was packed, I realized my car key was missing. I had to go back the way I came amidst the madness and thanked God when I stumbled on the bunch where it was buried into the ground by the feet of fleeing and frightened guests.
The couple was dumbfounded and shed such tears of agony, refusing to be consoled. I drove home shaking but thankful to God for saving my life.

For my other interesting wedding true-life stories, chek out http://www.ugonoble.blogspot.com/ and www.xomba.com/referral/77778609 for breaking news about Nigeria.

Always remember to sign up with www.google.com/adsense to make money online.

A Ghost At My Aunt's Wedding

WEDDING: EVEN A GHOST ATTENDED ONE

By Ugo Okeke

I have always hated the use of clichés in my writings but after this experience, I decided this is an exception. This real and true story is stranger than fiction.
I still remember with much trepidation this incident that took place over a year ago in the family of an extended relation. Actually, it was a wedding I stumbled on this fearsome tale.
My younger brother who stole a look at my title is already saying that I can sale my mother for the love of lucre. This is so because my relations made me promise not to tell the world knowing my pedigree as a writer and penchant for such. But after a year, I felt my readers deserve to read this true but strange happening in a wedding. You now know why I will not mention names here.
Now, the protagonist is my paternal aunty while the antagonist is her late husband.
This couple had left the shores of Nigeria in the wake of the 3 year Nigeria civil war where the Nigerian Government used the weapon of hunger to waste the lives of hundreds of thousands of Biafrans through the disease of kwashiorkor. Forgive me this slight digression down historical lane.
They traveled to London and took up resident permit and became British citizens after a couple of years in good old ever-cold London. My aunty was only 17years while the husband was 27 years old the time they wedded. His family according to the story had accepted to train him on one condition. And the condition was that he should get married to a good and well-trained home girl before he leave the country for a second degree in pediatrics.
Nobody heard anything unsavory about my aunty and her husband fro over twenty years. They were said to be sending money to relatives of whom my father was one of the biggest beneficiaries. In their thirty-fifth year, they came back to our town as the husband came from a community different from ours. There was much fanfare and celebration. That was when I was introduced to my aunty. But we noticed they came without their children. When we asked, my aunt’s husband prevaricated while my aunty made every effort to hide her discomfort, frustrations and deep-seethed anger over the topic. She kept eye-balling her husband.
I never knew any one of them except the photograph of my aunt of black and white background taken in her seventeenth birthday the week she left Nigeria for London with her husband.
Four year later, my aunty came back home at the age of 56 with a middle-aged man. She introduced him to the family after telling us that she had divorced her husband due to reasons she termed as irreconcilable difference and her frustrations with him for not doing much to help her have her own children through the artificial way. We felt sorry for her and bought her story. The new man in her life she told us is from Kenya. The customs of marriage were carried out within three days and they had a successful traditional wedding which was well-attended. For her second white wedding, she opted for a low key and private affair. Only family members were allowed.
Then came the 5th day of April 2006, we drove down to the biggest church on our community for the wedding. Everything went on well until the priest asked the routine question,
“Is there any one among you who have a reason this couple should not be joined together as husband and wife? Let such person speak up or forever remain silence.”
There was pin-drop silence among family members that were not up to twenty in the big church auditorium when we all heard,
“I have a reason.”
We all looked behind and saw nobody. But when my aunty looked back, she screamed,
“What are you doing here? You are dead!”
We were shocked by the evil revelation. We all took to our heels, the priest, and my aunt’s new husband inclusive when the ghost of my aunt’s late husband appeared at the altar and said…,
“She poisoned me to death so she can marry her lover of ten years because of my inability to father a child.” and disappeared.
When I looked back, my aunt was still lying where she had collapsed in an unconscious heap.
Today, she had gone back to London to live with her Kenyan husband and we heard they are expecting a baby.

For more, go to http://www.ugonoble.blogspot.com/