A woman has recounted the length she went in her desperate effort to have a child for her husband.
In an interview with The Nation, Matina Agawua, a native of Yelwata, a remote settlement in Nasarawa State revealed how she slept with the son she had from her first marriage to please her new husband who was threatening an end to their relationship if she would not conceive a baby.
Matina, who lost her first husband to herdsmen attack after they were married for about two years, had just a son and decided to remarry after spending 13 years as a widow.
But for more than six years after getting married to her second husband, an indigene of Toto Local Government Area of Nasarawa state identified simply as Mr. James, she could not conceive a child for what she said was no fault of hers.
“We had been married for more than six years but were still childless due to my husband’s fault, according to doctor’s report, and I was hearing from the grapevine that he was planning to take a second wife on the grounds that I could not give him a child” Matina said to The Nation.
After her first husband, Philip’s death, Matina had picked up courage to remain in the village since she had a son with her late husband. But owing to some irreconcilable differences between her and her husband’s relatives, she left the village and returned to Yelwata, her maternal home where she started a mini restaurant to eke out a living for herself and her only child.
Because of the remote nature of the community, however, the business was slow, hence she relocated to Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital where the business appeared to thrive better. It was in the course of selling food that she met James, her second husband, and they later got married.
But the marriage ran into a storm over its continued childlessness. In fact, matters got worse as Matina appeared to be giving more attention to her son than she was giving her second husband, causing James’s parents to feel that Matina was simply wasting their son’s time as she was incapable of bearing a child.
James’s mother was said to be particularly unhappy about the situation as she had eagerly looked forward to carrying her grandchild when the marriage was consummated. But six years down the line, there was no sign of pregnancy, much less a baby. Thus a plan commenced to get James a second wife.
At this point, Matina had joined resources with her husband’s to build a house in Lafia where they lived, with the implication that the new wife would occupy one of the rooms while Matina claims that she committed more resources to the project than her husband.
Amid the frosty relationship, accusations and counter accusations created by the development, the couple did not deem it necessary to go for a medical check-up to ascertain the source of the problem.
Matina however blamed James for the oversight, saying that she was willing to go for fertility test but her husband was not. She said she suspected that her husband was suffering from low sperm count which made him unable to father a child.
Matina said she had undergone a test on her own since her husband refused to go for one, and the result showed that there was nothing wrong with her fertility. But to further convince herself about her fertility status, she decided to lure her own son, a student in Akwanga, into a secret affair with a stem warming that he should not reveal it to anyone.
Matina said she did not want to fall in love with an outsider so as not to betray her husband or make him feel bad.
She said: “Since he is not comfortable with us going for medical checkup on the assumption that nothing was wrong with him, I decided to convince my little son, who is just about 16 years old and schooling in Akwanga.
“I visited him regularly. He stays in a private apartment with my relatives, so I was going there to spend some time with them, especially on weekends when my market is off.
“It was actually difficult making love with my own son, but circumstances forced me to go into it. I needed to be sure of my fertility.
“I know my husband very well. If he discovered I had an affair with a man outside, he would kill me.
“I love him so much and I’m afraid of him, so this evil plan kept ringing in my mind to know how fertile I am.”
“I tried to visit my son in Akwanga mostly when I was on my ovulation period. I decided to develop a crush on him and draw him very close to me. We got intimate and ended up having sex.
“One faithful day while I was on my ovulation period, I visited him. It was at about 11pm. I held his hand and made him sit beside me. I asked him if he had ever had sex and he said no. I held him in my arms. This time, I felt warm and I think he too did.
“After that night, I felt extremely embarrassed, and guilty that I committed such an abomination with my own son.
“It was actually a taboo, but I warned him to keep it secret.
