Sex Talk: You will love The Secret Lives Of Baba Segi’s Wives 

At the height of the DNA fracas that engulfed Ugandans sometime last month, a tweep mentioned that it all reminded her of the book: The Secret Lives Of Baba Segi’s Wives, by Lola Shoneyin.

I love reading; so, within minutes I had searched for the book online and purchased it. I have not laughed out loud while reading a work of fiction by an African author like I did as I read the work of this Nigerian author, a daughter-in-law to the great Wole Soyinka.

Hey, you need to read the book that kind of exonerates me and many of the things I often write in this column about the downside to polygamy, especially for a wealthy husband. While yes, the sex is varied, frequent and well-rationed, and the respect and pampering multiplied, as Mr Alao or Baba Segi found out, there are other factors a husband has zero control over.

This may be a work of fiction, but if you read it, you will be able to relate it to some families you may know – polygamous or not. The ones where a revered patriarch that knows how to lord it over his wife/wives and children, overlooks the small hands that nature may have dealt him, until the ugly truth can no longer be hidden.

The Secret Lives Of Baba Segi’s Wives will make you think about infertility from an angle we in Africa rarely consider. When there are no children in a home, the blame is automatically bundled on the ‘barren wife’, in most cases because: “Hey, how come I have managed to sire children through this affair and the other mistress? You are the problem!”

Well, the three Mrs Alaos skillfully played Mr Alao for years until jealousy and envy stopped them from looping the newly acquired, educated fourth wife into their elaborate scheme; poor Baba Segi soon discovered that indeed wisdom is not for one man!

How these three uneducated wives outsmarted their husband for years, each ensuring her secret was safely kept by ironically sharing it with the latest ‘sister wife’, is interesting storytelling and very relatable in an African setting where the ‘privilege’ of a woman identifying as married seems to surpass all other logic.

Even more interesting is Baba Segi’s final decision on the way forward, which again speaks very much to the importance of African values, and how far one will go to safeguard them.

This is a beautifully written book, full of humour with a good grasp and use of the English language. It is the first book by Shoneyin that I have read, but I will definitely look out for more; she is one of those writers that make you read with vivid mental images of the places and people she writes about.

If you love Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s style, then you will love Shoneyin, only that the latter is bolder with her language and generally takes no prisoners when writing. I am still trying to delete from my memory some of her descriptions of human genitalia…

And if you are one of those that identify as ‘husband to many’, who loves to walk through your different homesteads like a peacock, Shoneyin will add coals and petrol to the dying embers of the DNA paranoia that were possibly in your head; just saying!
On to the next book.

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