Penultimate Friday, the Jigawa Commissioner for Special Duties was arrested by the Kano Sharia police for allegedly playing an away game in his uncompleted building. The suspect, Auwal Danladi Sankara, was caught pants down performing a “special duty” with a married woman, named Tasleem Baba Nabegu. The discovery was made possible by the woman’s brother-in-law who played the spook. The undercover had been monitoring his sister-in-law’s away activities and led the Hisbah operatives to the venue where the match took place.
The Jigawa state Government has since suspended the commissioner for carrying his special duties too far, while investigation is ongoing.
Away game in this context is a parlance for an adulterous encounter involving a man outside his home front. Away matches are more often than not, dicey: you win some; you lose some. While some have been winning, others end up as eternal losers.
The first time I treated the topic was around March 23, 2012 in this column. The second time was on November 29, 2013, following a similar incident… both incidents ended tragically. The 2012 episode involved a 63-year-old newspaper editor in Oregon, USA. The septuagenarian, named Robert Caldwell, reportedly died of cardiac arrest during an away match with a younger opponent… 40 years his junior!
“According to a report, Caldwell, who was the editor of the editorial page of the Oregon, had the maximum attention of his mistress because he was meeting all her school expenses in exchange for away games. On the fateful day, the editorial stalwart had gone on one of his away matches at his mistress’ Tigard match venue. After the pre-match formality (you know what I mean), the encounter got underway. Midway into the pulsating match, the young lady noticed that the pressman was no longer playing the ball. She promptly rolled him over and alerted 911.
On November 23, 2013, right here in Abuja, a member of the House of Representatives representing Ondo, Ilaje Ese Odo constituency on the platform of the Labour Party, Hon. Raphael Oloye Nomiye, was reported to have laboured to death during an away match at his Gwarinpa venue, involving him and a lady banker who managed his accounts.
Another American away game danger struck when a 53-year- old Texan fella named Chavo Gutierres, weighing 250 pounds, bicycled over a distance of two kilometres to the littoral community of Tivoli in South Central Texas on an away match with a woman 24 years his senior. Chavo squeezed his massive frame into the match venue after lowering the glass panes on the woman’s screen door and engaged her in the match at knife point.
Gutierre was grinning from ear to ear in sheer pleasure but suddenly called off the match and dropped the knife, complaining that he was not feeling well. The unwilling mate must have had difficulty tipping his huge cadaver over. She too promptly alerted the police. Investigators believed that Gutierre died of heart failure.
Most away matches are played by men suffering from an affliction known in the marriage circle as Sex Familiarity Syndrome (SFS). SFS is an incurable disease caused by long-time participation in home matches.
Aside from infidelity which most men are capable of, women more often than not drive their spouses into away games. A woman who nags a lot, making the home venue one hell of a place, is unwittingly showing her man the turnstiles to an away match venue. Some women also make themselves unattractive to their husbands after marriage. Having lost all the curves or attractions that ensnarled him, the man is most likely to be tempted by the figure “8” out there into playing away matches. Then, there are those who are so frigid or both. They hold the key to the venues and decide when home matches could be played even when the oga at the top is in top form. Such men, who are incapable of forcing their way through the turnstiles by pummeling such stubborn women into submission, also settle for away matches”.
Another away match that ended in disaster was precipitated by a 53-year-old man, Raphael Solomon, who in a fit of rage, shot dead a man while he was playing an away match with his spouse at a cassava processing mini plant located in the Aduku Community of Sagbama Local Area of Bayelsa state.
A close family source said the deceased lover boy, identified as 28-year-old Preye Bernard, was the owner of the cassava processing plant used by the couple to process their produce after cultivation in Odi community.
It was gathered that the angry husband, who had been informed of his wife’s alleged away matches with the younger and perhaps, more active player, trailed her to the venue and caught them in the midst of the hostilities, to use sportswriters’ parlance.
As far as away games are concerned, a danger is a danger either encountered through heart attack or through the barrel of the gun. When I was growing up, a relation told me that if someone threatens to shoot you while hostilities are at the peak or you are about to melt down, you will tell the gunner to open fire! I hope that was not what happened on the cassava farm on that fateful day.
Also in Maiduguri, when the Boko Haram hostilities were at an apogee, a man was knifed to death after being caught swimming in his river in the bush. The river owner, Bulama Ngama of Ngamma village, near Maiduguri, was arraigned and subsequently convicted on a one-count charge of culpable homicide, not punishable with death, contrary to section 224 of the penal code. Bulama Modu bagged five years or a fine of N250, 000 for his murderous effort.
According to the report, Modu had told the court that when his river, Faltama Kundura, flowed from his house on the pretext of going for the wedding ceremony of her friend in a neighbouring village, he stealthily monitored the flow because he suspected the deceased named Bunu Zarami was following the flow closely and in a suspicious manner. Eventually, he trailed the duo to the bush where he found Bunu swimming vigorously like a catfish on top of his wife. He told the court that when the adulterous swimmer sighted him, he panicked, pulled a knife and wielded it ostensibly to scare him (“an intruder”) away. But the river owner took advantage of the shocking state the swimmer found himself, and knifed him repeatedly until he gave up the ghost.
However, the average Yoruba man will not waste his precious time monitoring his river wherever it flows. They have perfected all manner of checks to scare adulterous swimmers away from their rivers. The checks or traps include magun (don’t mount), cockcrow, agglutination and maje’la (don’t eat okra or okro) just to name some. And this is how they function:
Magun is a deterrent. It is planted in the river. Once an adulterous swimmer dives into the river, he will come out and somersault three times and give up the ghost.
The cockcrow is a trap. The swimmer, upon diving into the river, will feel like crowing like a red-headed cock. In fact, he will announce to the river that he wants to crow and there is no stopping him. The swimmer will announce his arrival in hell with a defeaning crow after giving up the ghost.
Agglutination is a dog-based talisman. Once the swimmer leaps into the river, he stays trapped in it in the manner of mating dogs, and the duo will remain inseparable until death will do them part.
Maje’la. This is a tricky one. You can swim adulterously and freely and get away with it. But the day the swimmer tastes okro soup, he will answer his final summons. So, if you see a man avoiding okro soup like a plague, it could be that he is a serial adulterer or fornicator playing safe.
Well, I have a suggestion for trigger-happy and knife-wielding spouses. They should go for any of the solutions listed above. Juju is not known to law. If any swimmer gets his comeuppance for an illicit swimming, the river owner cannot be held liable let alone suffer the kind of punishment the law prescribes for husbands who mete out jungle justice to their swimmer rivals.
