Experience, they say, is the best teacher. But for Aminu Babangida, the handsome and ambitious chairman of Unity Bank, it is also the best excuse. Still full of the joie de vivre of youth, he is under huge pressure to vacate singlehood and join the league of happily married folks. But, like a daring spy who speedily maps out an escape route from the enemy camp, Aminu is quick to use the matrimonial fortunes of his elder siblings as cautionary tales.
The battle lines have been drawn between Aminu and his kith and kin in the extended family of former military president Ibrahim Babangida. He has been told in no uncertain terms that the jewel of nuptial bliss is the only thing missing from the crown of his considerable accomplishments. Aminu, however, doesn’t give a hoot. He is haunted by the ghosts of his sibling’s marriages and doesn’t want to be a victim too.
There is no gainsaying that his two elder siblings Aisha and Muhammed Babangida have been battered and beaten into despondency by their respective sojourns on the nuptial scene. Both of them, bright-eyed sailors on a voyage to happy marital shores, became shipwrecked multiple times, marooned like Robinson Crusoe on islands of loneliness with not even a Man Friday for company.
While Aisha found love three times, two of which culminated in tying the nuptial knot, her first love, the one that did not see the light of marriage, was shattered on the altar of political expediency. She and Kola Abiola, son of the late businessman and acclaimed winner of the June 12, 1993 Presidential Elections MKO Abiola were a hot item but their relationship came to a sudden halt following the political rivalry of their fathers.
Thereafter, she was swept off her feet by Basheer Nalabo Garba, a relative of the Abachas, whom she married in 2003. He came to her as her sparkling knight in shining armour, and departed, just three years later, as the source of innumerable heartaches for her. The marriage, contracted under shaky foundations, swiftly collapsed due to irreconcilable differences.
Reasoning that third time might perhaps be the charm, Aisha strutted into the harem of Alhaji Aliyu Shinkafi, then the governor of Zamfara State, as his third wife, only to race out of the union several years later, hounded out, in large measure, by hostile elder wives.
The star of love dimned even lower for Muhammed Babangida whose celebrity marriage to Rahama Indimi, daughter of Bono-based billionaire Muhammed Indimi flirted with disaster multiple times before finally disintegrating like the charred remains of a crashed plane. Not even four children together could stop Muhammed and Rahama from pressing the self-destruct button on a relationship that spanned more than a decade.
Little wonder Aminu has seemingly made a solemn vow to remain a bachelor for life. While others are moving at breakneck speed towards the bustop of marriage, Aminu is driving against the traffic and enjoying doing so. Most of those hoping to become Mrs Aminu have long since thrown in the towel and moved on to other men.
Those close to the unassuming bank boss are not holding their breath for him to perform a uturn anytime soon. Whenever he is close to changing his mind the spectre of his sibling’s failed marriages looms large and makes him shiver in fright.