A Web of Lies

I had gone to Abuja for an official assignment. I was supposed to stay at the Hilton, but I changed my mind and decided to stay with Becky, my very good friend from way back who had just returned to Nigeria after a long sojourn in Europe. She was in Abuja for work, away from her family.

One Friday evening, a phone call came in. It was her neighbour upstairs. She mentioned that just like her, his family lived abroad but he lived and worked in Abuja. His name was Zuwie.

They got on quite well. Becky described him as a brilliant engineer, an incredible tech guru, generous to a fault, the life of the party and an all-round jolly good fellow. But his weakness was the opposite sex. He changed his women every Eke market day. He had no preference and entertained all kinds.

I mentioned to Becky that on a few occasions, while stepping out, I had seen different women leaving the apartment upstairs and had often wondered what sort of person her neighbour was. Becky didn’t like his lifestyle but she said it was none of her business as long as it didn’t affect the respect he had for her.

She also said that Zuwie had a family abroad and kept a young Ishan wife in Lagos, yet his love for women was insatiable.

From time to time, they hung out together when work allowed. So when he called that night, Becky told him about her friend who was visiting. He promised to take us out the next day and said he would be coming with a plus one. According to her, it was always a different girl.

Saturday evening came. Becky and I dressed up and waited. It had been a long week and we were ready to relax and have some fun. There was a knock at the door and without waiting for a response, he let himself in. Of course, it was Zuwie.

The moment I set my eyes on him, I felt a rush of emotions. Shock came first, then disbelief and then I laughed… long and hard.

He saw me and his eyes widened in shock. He took a step back as though he wanted to leave but he stood there, completely thrown off. I was the last person he expected to see. Becky noticed the confusion and asked if we knew each other.

Zuwie was Osazuwa—my older sister’s husband.

I had never liked him. I had always felt there was something about him that wasn’t right. He had a way of manipulating situations and I believed he did the same with my sister. She was too good for him.

There was a particular incident that confirmed my fears. I had gone to visit a friend of mine who worked at a hospital.

It was meant to be a quick visit, just to say hello and catch up. As I walked past one of the consulting rooms, I heard raised voices. A young woman was shouting, almost crying, refusing to leave.

“I said I’m not going anywhere! You people should do what I came here for!”

The nurses were trying to calm her down, explaining that the hospital did not carry out such procedures. But she was stubborn, loud and causing a scene.

Standing beside the girl like a man who had been dragged into trouble he couldn’t talk his way out of. My heart dropped. I couldn’t believe it. My own brother-in-law, in a hospital, with another woman, trying to arrange an abortion.

He saw me too but I walked away, shocked and disgusted.

Later, he went home and twisted the entire story. He told my sister that he had gone to see a doctor friend at the hospital and happened to meet me there. He claimed that I was the one who had come for an abortion. He added that his doctor friend said it was not my first time, that I had come there several times in the past and that I was always turned away but kept coming back.

Instead of asking me what really happened, my sister believed him. She took his side and she called me names I still struggle to forget. She called me a disgrace. A corporate prostitute. A woman hiding behind ambition while sleeping her way to the top. She said I rejected decent men because I preferred a life of sin. Every word cut deep.

We stopped talking. Completely.

Her words were painful, and it was obvious they had been fed to her. Those words were not hers. That incident destroyed our relationship. That day broke something between us.

Years passed and we stopped speaking to each other. I later got married but my sister did not attend my wedding. She believed I had tried to ruin her marriage so she wasn’t going to be part of mine in any way.

Despite everything, I never stopped caring about her children. I had her account details and always sent gifts to them on their birthdays and at Christmas but she never acknowledged any of them.

When I had my twins, she did not reach out. Family members tried to bring us back together but she refused. To her, anyone who came between her and her husband was an enemy.

We were the only two surviving daughters of our parents and we used to be very close. But Osazuwa ruined everything.

And now, here he was, standing before me like a child caught with his hands in the cookie jar. The room fell into a heavy silence. For a few seconds, no one spoke.

Osazuwa recovered first. That was his nature. He straightened up, forcing a smile, trying to regain control of the moment. He greeted Becky casually, as though nothing had happened, as though I was just another stranger in the room.

Becky’s confusion deepened but before she could process it, Osazuwa quickly stepped in, attempting to take charge of the narrative as he always did. He brushed it off as a family misunderstanding. A minor issue blown out of proportion. He spoke lightly, almost dismissively, hoping to shrink me.

That was when I stopped him. There was no room for his usual manipulation this time because this time, I was not the young girl he could silence with lies.

I reminded him, without raising my voice, of the hospital incident. He tried to deny it. Then he tried to twist it. Then he tried to laugh it off. But none of it held.

Osazuwa grew defensive. His tone sharpened. He accused me of holding grudges. Of trying to create problems where there were none. He spoke too fast, too much. But the more he spoke, the more he exposed himself.

I did not argue. I simply told him that his lies had cost me my relationship with my sister. That he had twisted a situation to protect himself and painted me as something I was not. And that no matter how far he ran, the truth would eventually catch up with him.

That was all. There was nothing else to say.

The evening ended without the outing we had planned. The mood had shifted.

Osazuwa left with his pride and I went back to my life.

I never bothered to explain anything to my sister. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I had been shut out for years. Blocked, ignored, misunderstood and I had learned to live with it.