According to stand-up comedian Atunyota Akpobome, better known by his stage name Ali Baba, it is simpler for males to marry women who do not share a residence.
The comedian clarified in an interview with The Clarity Zone podcast that these kinds of agreements frequently keep women from experiencing marital conflict.
“It’s easier to marry women who don’t live in your house with you. Those ones don’t come to disturb the Iyale,” he said.
He went on to share an analogy he learned from a wealthy man, comparing the structure of polygamous households to the situation in Nigeria.
“This man has four wives, all four wives but one don’t work. The one that works is a medical doctor and she has a thriving business, makes good money, takes what she wants and gives the rest to Oga. Oga then distributes to the other ones. The man still adds his own to it, but everybody is okay.
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“Then one day the woman says, ‘Oh, my son wants to go to Canada, that’s where he wants to go to school.’ And the other women say, ‘My son is not going to Canada, your own is not going to Canada as well.’
So she calls the man and says, ‘I don’t understand what these people are saying, that my son will not go to Canada.’ She said ‘okay,’ then she stopped giving money to the man, and all the other women started fighting. Two left. When the two left, the other two that were remaining…”
He likened the story to Nigeria’s economic reality, using the Niger Delta as a metaphor.
“That’s the thing that’s happening to Nigeria now. The Niger Delta is the one bringing the money. You take the money and share it to everybody. And when Niger Delta says, ‘We need three bridges,’ you say, ‘No, we have to distribute the bridges around everybody. We can’t give you three bridges yet.’”
Ali Baba concluded by emphasising the importance of fairness in polygamous marriages.
“Which is why they said that if you decide to marry more than one wife, you must treat everybody equally.”
