The Third Wife Is No Longer Keeping Her Voice Down.

For the first four days of Baba Segi’s absence, the family compound in Ibadan maintained a fragile, managed quiet. Iya Segi saw to that. But on the morning of Day 5, something happened, and it was loud. Iya Femi, Baba Segi’s third wife, has found her voice. Several neighbours on the street would argue she has found everyone else’s voice too.

“You could hear her from the road,” one resident told this reporter, with an expression that suggested this was not the first time. “She was asking questions nobody was answering.”

What questions, exactly, this reporter attempted to establish. The answers varied depending on who was asked. But the words that came up most consistently were these – why, how long, and, most pointedly, who knew.

That last question is worth sitting with. Who knew.

It is the kind of question that does not get asked in a vacuum. It is the kind of question that implies the person asking it already suspects an answer. When this reporter encountered Iya Femi near the compound entrance, she did not need much encouragement to speak.

“I am not going to stand here and pretend everything is fine,” she said, gesturing broadly at nothing and everything simultaneously. “Iya Segi can do that. That is her gift. Me? I want to know where my husband is, and I want to know now.” She paused. “And I want to know who in this house is not as surprised as they should be.”

She went back inside before this reporter could respond. The gate closed behind her. It did not close quietly.

In a household that has spent five days carefully controlling what it shows the world, Iya Femi has just introduced a variable that nobody, least of all Iya Segi, appears to have accounted for. A woman with nothing left to lose, and no interest in silence.

The family compound is no longer quiet.

— The CEN Report
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