In Warri, marriage was never only two people.
No.
It was a whole market — eyes watching, tongues wagging, drums beating.
Okpan Aribo — the man with strings and truth in his mouth —
built a tent with his music.
His voice rose in compounds and creeks alike.
He sang the story every man pretended not to know
and every woman already understood.
Polygamy? In those days, it was no crime.
“Na so Warri be.”
A man with one wife could take another,
and the elders would say, “If he fit feed them, leave am.”
The second wife sat like a shadow,
and Okpan sang:
“Woman wey no wan mate, pack comot from marriage!”
The crowd would roar, half in laughter, half in pain.
Because they knew — side chicks no dey play.
They were ruthless, diabolical,
mixing soup with secrets,
whispering incantations in the night.
Close friends eyed close friends’ husbands.
It was as old as the river.
No surprise, but always a wound.
Urhobo proverb says:
“God gave each person their own portion,
but some still stretch their hand into another’s bowl.”
So women fought back in their own way.
And food became both love and weapon.
There was Egbele Kokomiyo —
that Itsekiri soup, rich and irresistible.
They said: “Cook am well, e go tie your husband leg for house.”
Men licked the bowl,
and women prayed the taste would drown every outside desire.
I remember a friend’s mother,
her voice both warning and laughter.
She said:
“When you marry, never go tell your friends
how sweet your husband dey treat you.”
She shook her head, eyes far away.
“I tell my friend once — say my husband good,
kind, generous.
From that day?
My marriage scatter.
Home vanish.
Life turn upside down.”
She ended with that bitter Warri laugh,
half pain, half wisdom.
“Shine your eye. No let your joy turn invitation.”
Because in Warri, proverbs walked the streets:
“If you dey dance for market, no forget say people wey no buy yam dey watch your leg.”
(Show too much happiness, and envy will follow your footsteps.)
(Charm and cooking may lure, but only love and respect sustain.)
So marriage in Warri was like a masquerade dance.
One step forward, two steps back.
Drums beating, eyes watching.
Love and betrayal locked arms and circled the arena.
Okpan sang it plain.
Some men danced like kings.
Some women cooked like queens.
But many carried secret wounds,
pretending wholeness where there was breakage.
And always, always, the chorus returned:
echoing Okpan:
“Woman wey no wan mate —
leave the marriage!”
And the people laughed,
even as their hearts bled.
The Child Who Watched
Growing up, I got to see the many-sided effects of polygamy.
Houses where love was stretched thin.
Houses where children carried the quarrels of their mothers like secret burdens.
Houses where laughter mixed with suspicion.
I never asked my mother how she coped.
No.
That was one conversation I never had.
Because in Warri we knew — no be everything small pikin fit dey ask.
Some questions stayed locked behind the lips.
Some answers lived only in the eyes of women.
But what I did see, clear as daylight,
was this:
no devil in hell could make my mother
give up the family she had sacrificed so much to keep.
Her love was fierce.
Her faith was unbending.
And though the storms of “Warri Wahala” swirled around her,
she stood.
She stood for us.
She stood for home.
She stood for the name she carried,
and for the children who bore it after her.
And in her standing, I saw a piece of Warri itself.
Because Finding Warri is not only about streets and quarrels,
not only about politics and oil.
It is also about the women who held houses together with bare hands.
It is about the love that refused to bow to chaos.
It is about the mothers who taught us — without saying a word —
that peace begins in the heart you refuse to surrender.
Yes — in my mother’s quiet endurance,
I was already Finding Warri.
#FindingWarri #WaffiTales #DeltaStories #Urhobo #Itsekiri #Ijaw #nigeria #uvohonoriobe
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