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Saturday, October 13, 2012

Why Nigerian Uniform Men Are Promiscuous –Wife of Ex-Chief of Naval Staff



Mrs. Margaret Koshoni, wife of a former Chief of Naval Staff and former Minister of Aviation, retired Vice-Admiral Patrick Koshoni, shares her marital and other experiences with ’NONYE BEN-NWANKWO

How do you feel clocking 70?
At 70, I feel great and I feel fulfilled. If you remember, in the Bible, God allow us to be 70. If you are 70, the end of your time is coming because you have reached the age God promised you. But some people are lucky and I know that I’m part of the lucky ones. I know God is going to extend my age and give me more years to enjoy my children and their children.

Is there any difference in your lifestyle now that you are 70?
Life at 70 is different from when you are 50 or 60. Your perception of life will be different. When you are younger, you hold on to ideas. Now, you let the ideas hold on to you. You let things go. You now have time to be closer to God. You have done everything. The age 70 is like an examination. If I have more time after this 70, how best would I use it if not to be closer to God? Everyday could be the last. You have to prepare for the next stage of your life whether you believe in heaven or hell. After 70, you are waiting for the Judgement Day. You will love more the things you have neglected. 

You see that grandmothers love their grandchildren more than they love their children. When you are having your children, you know they would always be there. What you wanted for them was to make sure they feed, clothe and be responsible. With grandchildren, it is very different. You have gone through it with their parents. Now, you will love them so much because you know that you may leave them soon. You pay more attention to your grandchildren. You come down to their level and play with them. This is what I am doing now. I live for my grandchildren. I speak their language. I try to come down to their level. They added me on BlackBerry. That is the new pleasure in my life. There is nothing more I want now. I pray for good health and long life. It is not as if I want to go to Louis Vuitton and buy a bag or go to Channel and buy a new belt. I even gave out all my designer clothes and bags. They are no longer my priority. 

If a woman at my age dresses to be 40, people will say they woman has lost it. Wear what you like, but don’t aspire for what is beyond you. See the way girls dress now. Half of their boobs jump out, their thighs are out. If a grandmother wears such a thing, she should be stoned. At 70, your perception should be different. It is like you have reached the climax. At that age, you are losing most of your friends. You even get scared. You wonder when it would get to your turn. This is what 70 means and that is what it should mean to Christians who believe that 70 is the landmark. God is benevolent. My father was 92. My mother is 90. She is still alive. Their three score and 10, God has extended it.

As you have clocked this age, does it mean you are no longer active? Have you retired from all the stuff you used to do?All my children are praying for is that I should sit at home and do nothing. But I say to them that if I sit at home and be idle, I might get ill. It is not in me to be idle. I like to create work. Early this year, I didn’t find anything more to do in this home. I couldn’t go to my shops, nobody buys things anymore. I decided to put an extension in my home. I added three more rooms in our house. It keeps me busy. Even if I was 100 years and I was still healthy, I would still do things I love doing. I try to be active. I have arthritis. But whenever my knees start to ache, I say to myself the longer I am in bed, the more I ache. I will get up and move on and find something to do. If I don’t see anything, I walk round the whole house or I ask the driver to take me to the road and I will tell him to drop me off, then I would walk back home. I bake, I sew. I cannot be idle. My children’s friends see me in the market and they call my kids and ask them about what I am doing in the market. But they know that there is nothing they can do to stop me. When I get to be idle, I know that I would be getting ready to go and meet my maker.

Are there things you wish you could have done better that you didn’t do when you were younger?
I wish I had minded my own business when I was much younger. Now, I still have to buy and sell to make money. But in my days, I made a lot of money. I was the first to bring take-away food to Nigeria. I was the first person to do ‘meals on wheel.’ If I took money from the bank and they said I should pay back in four years, sometimes I paid back the loan in six months. That was how good my business was. But I couldn’t see anybody in need and leave the person alone. If I had minded my business and saved my money, I would have been a billionaire. I would have been travelling the whole globe. If I come back to life again, I would mind my own business. My company then was known as Bottle and Basket. The business of take-away food, being the first in Nigeria, was very, very good.

How did you conceive the idea of the take-away business?
I worked for the Honorary Counsel of Sweden. He owned the premises occupied by the British Embassy. I was solely in charge. He used to come to Nigeria maybe two or three times in a year. I trained as a secretary. I liked what I was doing. I wasn’t a time waster. I never went on break when I was working. I found out that anytime my boss wasn’t around, I had a lot of time on my hand. I started baking cake. I had people who were doing bicycle sales of the cake for me. I found out that the cakes and sandwiches were giving me money more than my salary. In one week, I could get my salary. But I liked going to the office because it afforded me the opportunity to dress well and meet with people. I also worked with Shell Nigeria as the Installation Manager’s secretary. I saw that people were always hungry before lunch. We were at the Apapa terminal. So I started making sandwiches in the morning. I would give it to the coffee girl to sell. It was one shilling then. In about a week, people wanted more and more. Then again, I said to myself one day, why not include food? That was how it started.

Did you eventually resign from Shell to concentrate on your business?
I worked for a few more months before I decided to move on. By that time, I was into buying houses. One of the conditions needed to get a loan in the bank then was that you must have a paid employment. So anytime I needed a loan, I would get a job and then I moved on. I was instrumental to the progress of the now FCMB. I was the chairman’s secretary. We were in Mandilas House then. I worked there for a year and I left to concentrate on my business. My company was thriving until 1994 when the premises got burnt and we lost everything. I thought they would repair it but nobody did. I didn’t try to get my shop back. I moved on in other directions.

You must have enjoyed being a secretary…
Back then, it was a big deal to be a secretary. When I came back to Nigeria, my grandparents had connections with Leventis. They built on our land. The Iddo house and all that belonged to my maternal grandfather. I had to work for Leventis to be part of the system. Then, you go on break by 12 noon and come back by 2 pm. I couldn’t cope with that. The salary was good. They gave me a car and other incentives because of my grandfather. But I couldn’t cope with the break period. I worked there for a few months before I went to Shell Marina. Because of my state of mind, anytime I go to an office to work, I really want to work. I saw people who when they wanted to dictate something to you, they would be saying, ‘Eemm… eemmm.’ I couldn’t cope. So I opted to work for a white man because those ones knew what they were doing. I got transferred to Apapa branch as the Installation Manager’s secretary. The advantage of that transfer was that the office was next to my husband’s office and we lived in Apapa. The Installation Department was the heart of Shell. I used to calibrate the product and other things. I enjoyed it. But I wanted to move forward. There was an advert in a paper. 

One woman was leaving and she wanted somebody to replace her in an office. I thought that it would be better for me to take over from the oyinbo woman who was leaving than to continue working in Shell. Shell was giving me £60 then. It was an executive salary. I was offered £70 in the new place. I found out that the work was better than what I was doing in Shell. We had five different companies. The owner was the honorary counsel of Sweden. I was in charge of the consulate. He had other companies. I was also in charge of the companies. I did my best. He liked working with me even though he was never around.

Your husband didn’t mind the fact that you were a career woman?
I was a full time housewife and I will tell you how it happened. We came back to Nigeria during the war. My husband was always at work. He would spend six weeks away and maybe one week at home. We didn’t have many children. We had just one son. We had a maid. With the way the lives of Navy men were at that time, one needed a wife that was working. They get paid. But they had a mess. After each working day, they would retire to the mess and friends come and they drink and make merry. At the end of the month, your pay packet is reduced when the mess would have taken its own money to pay the debt you had incurred in the mess for that month. They deduct their money at the end of the month. And for those who have wives and children, how would they survive? The men in the Army were more affluent than those in the Navy. To make life easier for my husband, wherever I worked, I dictated my own working hours.

How was growing up, having a grandfather who was a king?
My maternal grandfather was the Oloto of Oto. It didn’t matter so much to us. We are of Isale-Eko stock. My paternal grandfather came from the ruling class as well. They all had education commensurate with their status. In those days, if women go to England, we called such ladies ‘Been to.’ Each of us had to go and live with one ‘Been to.’ We didn’t live at home. We thought our parents didn’t like us and they wanted us to suffer. But when we lived with those women, we still had to pay for our boarding and did all the work. Now I see the dividends. What could we have gained if we had lived in Isale-Eko? There was no emancipation or civilisation. It was only the people that went far (Campos, Tinubu, Yaba) that learnt more. I lived in Yaba with a ‘Been to.’ In those days, we never really came back for holidays. During the holidays, you stayed with your madam but your parents were allowed to come and see you.

So growing up wasn’t a bed of roses?
It couldn’t have been. We were looked after with the best of care, but the women we were living with were better than us and we were in awe of them since they were ‘Been to.’ When I was in Standard One, the woman I lived with never joked with newspapers. She would always make sure I knew what was in the headlines because she would ask me questions concerning them. I was cramming the front page headlines. She never allowed me any time for any nonsense. She didn’t eat pepper, but we had to grind pepper every morning and she would find somebody who she would give it to. My parents had to go to London at a time. My father worked at the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria, which is now PHCN. They had to put me in boarding school.

How was life in the secondary school?
It was my best of times. We were in boarding school and we looked forward to the day-students bringing news from Lagos. We didn’t have any magazine, but there was The Drum then. That was the only magazine during that time and we were never allowed to bring it to school. The days-students would read The Drum and cram all the highlights and they would come and tell us what they read.

When did you meet your husband?
I was into sports and he was also into sports. We used to have inter-school sports then. During one of the sports days, I saw somebody nudging me and I was very angry. During those days, my mother had told us that if we let a man touch us, we would get pregnant. I thought the ‘touch’ she meant was just ordinary touching somebody. So when my husband was looking at me somehow, I ignored him. But when he came and touched me, I cried. I thought I was pregnant because he touched me. Anyway, I was so angry with him and I told him not to touch me again. I discovered that he attended St. Finbarr’s. I was in Our Lady of Apostle. He would have to pass in front of my school whenever he was going to school. I was in charge of opening the school gate. So I made sure I was prim and proper each time I opened the gate so that he would see me and wave at me. I couldn’t go to the gate and talk to him because somebody might be watching and report me. His sister was my schoolmate and he used to bring letters to me. We left school the same year in 1961. He went to India and I went to England.

Were you still communicating even after you left secondary school?
Yes. Before we left, I had promised to marry him. He also promised to marry me. I couldn’t for the life of me break that promise. Staying in London without a boyfriend was a bit rough for me. I decided to live with his brother and his girlfriend then. They eventually got married. I didn’t trust myself if I hadn’t stayed with them.

How did you feel the first time you got to England?
I was scared and disappointed.With what I had read and with what people had told me about England, I thought there wouldn’t be anything like dirt in that country. I thought some parts of the road would be gold and the other part would be silver. London (the English capital), when I got there, was at par with Nigeria of those days. Their airport wasn’t much better than ours. Oyinbos were using brooms to sweep the floor. I thought it was God that would come down and sweep the floor for them. I asked myself why I didn’t stay back home. However, the Secretarial Studies in London that time was just nine months, while it was 18 months in Lagos. That was my compensation and for the first time, I was going to be independent.

Did you support your husband going to the Navy?
No. We didn’t know anything about the Navy. When he was going into the Navy, Nigerians didn’t know anything about the Navy. We thought it was Merchant’s Navy. It was new. When he was going, I thought he was part of the Merchant’s Navy. Later, the Navy evolved and it was brought to the open and we got to know about it. He had already spent three or four years before I realised that he was in the Nigerian Navy.

People say men in the military like women a lot…
You don’t have to say it ‘stylishly.’ Just hit the nail on the head. Men in uniform are promiscuous! But I asked God to give me the strength to accept the things I cannot change. There is no divorce in the Catholic Church. When I had my first son, I looked at him and I shuddered. He was just like my husband. He looked so much like him that it frightened me. The baby was my first experience. Because he looked so much like his father, I fell in love with him more. I looked at him as my husband. I tolerated everything because of my son. I didn’t know how to behave with a child. All the things the doctor told me flew out of my head. I was told to be feeding my child every four hours but I always forgot. But the baby would never cry. Each time I remembered and gave him food, he would gulp it down. I decided not to leave my home so that my child will not suffer. If my baby could suffer in silence, I didn’t want to aggravate the problem by leaving my house for any reason. 

There was a time I left my windows open during winter. I have small lungs so I always want air. I forgot that a small baby didn’t need that kind of air. I noticed my baby hiccupping. I said he needed water. I didn’t know the baby had pneumonia. I went to the hospital and the doctors screamed when I told them I left the windows open. After my baby went all through this, I said I wasn’t going to leave my home for anything. If I leave and another woman comes in, would she be tolerant of my child? Nothing could be greater than my affection for my son. When the other children came, they still looked like their father. I felt God was talking to me never to leave my home. I cannot change my husband but I would tolerate him as long as he didn’t insult me by bringing another woman into the house. I didn’t care what he did outside. Some friends came to tell me what he was doing outside but I told them that they were traitors. I would ask them if they told him that they would tell me what he was doing. So my friends had to even stop telling me things. I would have loved to know but what use would it be? He was a very fine young man. Even if he didn’t want to flirt, women would chase him around because he was very fine. The things you cannot change, tolerate and know it is only God that can change a man. Pray for him.

Eventually, he became the Chief of Staff, how did you feel?
I felt fulfilled for him. He was able to reach the zenith of his career. I thanked God. The promotion was even more for me than him. He would wake up and go to work. I would be at home and friends would come to the house and be congratulating me. It was as if I was the one that got the promotion.

And he also became Minister of Naval Health and also of Transport and also of Aviation…
Yes.

So how did you feel then?
That is one area I wouldn’t want to get into. All the time he was a minister, I didn’t really know much about his office, I wasn’t really interested because I was preoccupied with a greater challenge. My second son became very ill. I didn’t know he was ill. When I realised it, he had become very sick. I had no choice but to look after him. I went to several hospitals. With such a challenge, how would I find time to be the wife of a minster? Let’s say I was in coma during all the ministerial appointments. I was alive but I wasn’t part of the position. I trusted God. If I didn’t trust Him, I would have lost my son. He is still in hospital, but God is taking charge and He was graceful enough to bless him with a girl and boy.

What more do you hope to achieve?
I want to dedicate my life to God. I want to be my grandchildren’s best friend. I want to be there for my sons wives. We don’t know what you girls want. You want what your husband cannot afford. I want to pray to God that this evil wind will pass over Nigeria. I want the situation in this country to be better.

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