TheCable

BY SOTONYE IJUYE-DAGOGO

Fantasy is the vehicle for madness. It comes first. You look at yourself, the humongous wealth you intend to grab, the oil company, the hotel, the mansions, luxury cars and overflowing bank accounts. There are drivers, cooks, stewards and a large retinue of aides.

Chiefs, pastors, men, women, friends and relations are all struggling to please you, seeking one favour or the other; somersaulting in praise singing and prodding you on. Everything appears to have fallen in place, your plot is working. Then you begin to feel like a goddess, a super intellectual created to supervise and determine the destinies of men.

Next, you create stories, believing them as true, even as you know that they are mere fabrications. You feel that others are foolish, stupid and incapable of deciphering your gimmicks … when all these begin to happen, then the sickness has actually matured and things have gone out of control.

The widow of late High Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs, Seinye Lulu-Briggs has procured the services of one Oraye St. Franklyn to spearhead the satanic conspiracy to criminally eject the genuine biological children of her late husband, those who have his blood running in their veins, from his heritage and inject “strange blood” as inheritors of the O.B. Lulu-Briggs legacy.

Oraye has since jumped with both legs into the deep river of controversies surrounding the demise of the late head of Young-Briggs House of Abonnema and like a newly signed center forward in a Premiership Club, Oraye is eager to justify his ‘record’ sign on fees.

Yesterday 19 October, 2019 the Okrika-born Oraye St. Franklyn smacked his lips over what he thought was a sensational piece captioned “Can Dumo Please Deny These Facts?” in which he accused the Chief of the Lulu-Briggs family, Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs of “refusal to lay his father, High Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs, to rest and rather choosing to pass the buck to his stepmother, Dr. (Mrs.) Seinye O.B. Lulu-Briggs”

Rather than help his beleaguered madam find answers to the disturbing questions of how her husband, High Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs died and why she has kept his mortal remains for ten months in faraway Ghana, Oraye chose to ask some ten questions on behalf of Seinye Lulu-Briggs aimed at portraying Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs in bad light.

Most of the questions were neither here nor there but let’s examine four of the questions that have some semblance of meanings:

Oraye: Can Dumo please deny that he did not send any terms of settlements to his stepmother as preconditions for his father’s interment?

(Me: If Dumo wants to settle, then who is causing the stalemate? Are settlements done before or after the cause of action? Anyway, Dumo never sent any precondition except to know how is father died. Is Seinye planning to fabricate and publish a purported terms of settlement from Dumo?)

Oraye: Can Dumo please deny that he did not demand from his stepmother 50% of her Monipulo Limited and also rejected her acceptance based on her insistence that it must be for both him and his siblings, all his father’s children?

(Me: Did I hear “her Monipulo”? Do we need any more proof why Seinye is in this break or mar fight? When did Seinye own Monipulo and who are Dumo’s siblings, Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs’ biological children?)

Oraye: Can Dumo please deny that he never claimed to demand for her matrimonial residence until the interjection of respected mediators?

(Me: This is utter balderdash. The Dumo that I know believes that a loyal and faithful wife deserves to remain in her matrimonial home. Is this a case of a sinner running even when nobody pursues?)

Oraye: Can Dumo please deny … that his involvement of Pastor David Ibiyeomie… in negotiating with his stepmother was to set aside his father’s will…?

(Me: Was that why Seinye accused the Amayanabo of Kalabari, Pastor Ibiyeomie and Governor Wike of being biased against her? Was that why Seinye rushed to read her version of a Will disinheriting all the older biological children even when her husband is still in a mortuary in faraway foreign land?)

Rush on…the sickness has finally matured and we are in the realm of absurdities and insanity.

If not, how can a woman who got married to an already well-established man for only 16 years of his 88 years on earth (exaggerated in the media as having been married to her ‘beloved’ husband for decades) and who never had a biological child for him, do this?

How can a woman insist on substituting her husband’s biological children, some of whom, who have attained national recognition like Dumo Lulu-Briggs, with her own far younger children that she had with other men?

Why would a wife be opposed to an inquest into the death of her ‘beloved’ husband if she has nothing to hide? A mere inquest to determine the cause of death.

Let’s even accept without conceding that Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs did this and did that, is that enough reason for them to question a 55 years old biological son and chief of the house for demanding his late father’s estate?

It’s Dumo’s biological father we are talking about here. Hello!

Moreover, Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs as the chief of the family had said countlessly that all he wants is to know how exactly his father died, having been locked up in a grounded aircraft for five hours and thereafter give him the much deserved befitting burial. This shouldn’t have taken a month if Seinye were open.

Then the blackmail: “Does Dumo really want a response from his stepmother? Can he live with the consequences of public spectacle of scandalous details? Does he appreciate the ramifications it can have on him and those associated with him?” Oraye asked.

What further response can come from those who have committed sacrileges, the type never before seen in Kalabari land? What further spectacle of scandal can be more than this naked dance of shame? Does this woman have a family to advise her?

… and then the driving force of greed:

“It must be reiterated that Dr. (Mrs.) Seinye Lulu-Briggs… would not consent to the abrogation of his (her husband’s) will to achieve that purpose no matter how damning a war is waged against her or vexatiously thick the conspiracy against her becomes” Oraye St. Franklyn concluded.

As if this shameless show of absurdity were not enough, Oraye St. Franklyn threatened that “Should (this writer) Ijuye Dagogo not properly confer with his Principal before putting his pen to paper again, given that the next responses from us would be scathingly detailed, evidentially robust and logically coherent with position from the very beginning”.

I don suffer. However, I have decided to ignore this infantile threat, just as I do not intend to question Oraye’s interest in the matter concerning the demise of the Kalabari War Canoe High Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs. I shall with proper documentation, show in my subsequent responses who between Seinye and Dumo is responsible for the delay of the burial of Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs. Shoes have sizes.

May strangers usurp the inheritances of all those supporting this evil and may they never have the opportunity to ask questions if their beloved ones die suddenly.