When a boy starts hunting your young daughter

In the late eighties, when my wife Carol was still working in the bank, a man who joined her bank from another bank got to know that she is Mrs. Ighele. He asked her to know which Ighele she was married to. When Carol told him that she is married to Charles Ighele, the man said: “Oh, I know him. I know Charles. His father was my customer in my former bank. He has many fine things, but he was so strict that boys were afraid of going to his house to ask for them.”

Carol then replied, “Is it my sisters-in-law you are calling fine fine things? You are calling ladies things?” Anyway, they laughed over it. When I went to pick her from work that evening, she told me the story and asked if I know such a person. I said: “Yes, I know him” and we laughed over how he referred to my sisters as “fine fine things.”

After my parents had me, the six children that came after me were all females. It was much later that some males came. My father and mother had to deliberately look for a way of protecting their colony of females from being hunted and used by rampaging young boys and men. While boys could go to some other homes to visit females or to circle around them, my father’s stern look alone would scare a boy away.

In fathering my daughters, I think I inherited that style from my father. A few years after we moved to Lagos, I was at home when a boy knocked at the gate and the security man opened for him to enter. I have never met the boy before. Upon inquiry, he said he wanted to see one of my daughters and that they attend the same secondary school.

When I took a second look at him, it was so clear that he had come to hunt my daughter. I knew because when I asked him what he wanted her for, he fumbled and licked his lips like a female hunter, and I decided to roar like a lion at this young hunter who came to hunt my daughter and her destiny. I said with a loud voice, “Will you get out of this place?” Before I could take a second look, he had disappeared like a frightened dog.

I later learnt through my daughter that the news spread round her school. It created some reverential fear around my home and my daughter to the extent that when boys could easily visit the homes of some of her schoolmates, none came near my home, whether a serpent or a dove.

I am not saying parents should imitate me. All I am stating here is that, parents should device means of preventing their young daughters from being devoured by male hunters.

My parents never allowed my sisters go to nightclubs. They did not leave our home to visit people any time they liked. There is no day you come to my parents’ home by 6pm and all his daughters wouldn’t be at home. No wonder many of them are doing well professionally in other countries, where they live with their families. Fathers and mothers should not allow their daughters and sons to journey through life like sheep without a shepherd. Children hardly forget strong and kind fathers and mothers. Do not be afraid to be a shepherd to your children. Love you.