It all sounds like a scene in Nollywood movie, but it is as real as daylight. Twin sisters had a baby each two months apart for a man their mother was dating and planned to marry after losing her husband in one of the incidents of the farmers/herders crisis that has rocked Nasarawa and other neighbouring states in recent times.
Thoroughly embarrassed by the ugly spectacle, the distraught mother of the twin sisters, Mrs Alice Ukange, is threatening to take her own life, saying that she cannot be alive to see “the shame” meted out to her by Philomina and Patricia.
Both Philomina, who was delivered of a baby girl in January, and Patricia, who was delivered of a baby boy in March, insist that they were impregnated by Mr Augustine Angwe, who had been dating their mother, Alice, since she lost her husband, Francis Ukange, after 14 years in marriage.
The couple were said to have been blessed with the twin sisters about four years after they got married. And with the death of Ukange, Alice resorted to combining farming with petty trading in order to make ends meet.
With this, she was able to send her twins to a public school in Assakyo and the family appeared to have found their feet until a wolf in sheep clothing found its way into their fold.
The poor mother had met Mr. Angwe, an indigene of Vandeikya Local Government Area, Benue state, in 2017 while the latter was in Nasarawa State to transact his business, which was buying raw food items from the local farmers and taking them to the Southeast to sell at higher prices.
In the course of doing the same business, Angwe and Alice met in a local market in Obi Local Government Area of Nasarawa State and they struck a relationship which within three months blossomed to the point that Alice relocated from Assakyo to stay with Augustine in Lafia where he had paid for an apartment.
In no time, Angwe, who had lost his wife and two kids in a fatal accident on Katsina Ala Road in Benue State and was yet to remarry, became a part of the family, rendering finance assistance to Alice’s female twins to meet their basic needs; a development that soon drew the twins very close to him.
Later, Angwe and Alice began a joint business, buying yams from local farmers in Nasarawa State and transporting them for sales at higher price in Lagos and Port Harcourt. The business flourished with Alice always on the road while Angwe took care of the home front and made arrangements for new stocks.
Meanwhile, one of the twin sisters, Philomina, had completed her secondary school and secured admission into the College of Education Akwanga to do a Pre-NCE programme while Patricia remained in Lafia for a diploma programme at the Nasarawa State Polytechnic.
Now a father figure to the twin sisters, Angwe allegedly started enticing them with luxury items and seized the chance to sleep with them at different locations until he got both of them pregnant.
Lamenting her condition in an interview with our correspondent, Alice said: “The man (Angwe) encouraged me and gave me some money to run this yam business, going from Nasarawa to Port Harcourt and Lagos. So I was always away and he took them as his own children. Little did I think that he could lure them to sleep with him.”
Alice believes that Angwe might have used a charm on her daughters to get them to sleep with him, saying: “How he was able to start sleeping with them so easily is what I don’t know. At 22 years, my twins are no longer kids. They are fully aware that the man is dating me.”
“It is unthinkable and unbelievable. He was visiting Philomina in Akwanga and using the opportunity to sleep with her in a hotel. He enticed her with luxury items and bought her a big phone. Back in Lafia, he was also sleeping with Patricia using the same tricks.
“I was always away on business trips while he stayed behind, looking for local yams to buy. When I noticed that they were both pregnant, they refused to tell me who was responsible for them.
“Before the untimely death of their father, he had warned them never to do an abortion, saying that any of them who tried to abort a pregnancy would die. The essence of it was to scare them so they would not destroy themselves early.
“So when the idea of aborting the unwanted pregnancy was mooted, the thought of their late father’s words came and we all became afraid. They also refused to disclose the person that was responsible. So out of anger, I left them alone.
“Incidentally, Mr Augustine (Angwe) too was asking me to leave them alone, saying that they would make their confessions at their own time. But one month, two months, three months and four months passed without them identifying the person. That was how they carried the pregnancies for nine months and were delivered of babies.” Shocking revelation
Alice recalled that two months the second of the twin sisters was delivered of her own baby, Angwe woke her up one night and broke to her the news that he was actually responsible for their pregnancies and that the new born babies belonged to him.
“I broke down in tears and cried for a whole week. I asked him what I had done to deserve this wicked act. It is a shame that my own fiancé is the father of my twins’ babies. How would I explain this shameful development to people?
“My husband was killed with members of his entire family when herdsmen invaded their village and cleared everybody in the village. We had travelled to Lafia for some medication and were the only surviving people in the family.
“I met Augustine as a gentle, nice and humble man. He treated me like my late husband. He cared so much about my twins. But he ended up ruining our lives. How can you be sleeping with me and my twin children at the same time?”
Our correspondent had got hint of the development early last month (June), but getting the parties involved in the matter to speak was a herculean task until he met Alice in Awe Market where she had gone to buy yams and she obliged to speak about it.
She said: “My name is Alice Ukange. I am a widow. I lost my husband here in Awe during the herdsmen/farmers crisis some years back. I met one Augustine Angwe in the course of my business. One thing led to another and we started dating ourselves.
“He appeared to be gentle, humble and kind. I was carried away and I allowed my twins to be close to him. He took time and planted evil in my house by impregnating them. “They have now given birth. I allowed it because their father warned them not to do abortion and that they would die if they did.
“Augustine has finished me. He slept with me, slept with my twins and impregnated them, and they have given birth for him.
“I am confused and have informed one of my late husband’s relatives and he too is speechless.
“Going to the police would not solve the problem as the damage has been done already. There is nothing the police can do, more so that Augustine is ever ready to take care of them. But the big question remains how a man would marry twin sisters.”
In a chat with or correspondent in Lafia, Angwe admitted impregnating the twin sisters, saying that he would have aborted the pregnancies but they insisted on keeping them. He also said the girls in question were the ones who lured him into sleeping with them.
He said: “I didn’t know that they would get pregnant. But when they did, I wanted them aborted but they refused, saying that their father warned them against it.
“My brother, these girls were actually the ones who lured me into sleeping with them. They enjoyed it the first time we had it. From what started like a joke, it became a regular thing.
“I know I have deeply hurt the mother but it has happen and there is nothing anybody can do. That is the work of the devil and I wholeheartedly accepted responsibility so as not to ruin their lives. They can pick up the pieces of their lives and move on after nursing the babies.
“To avoid the shame, I moved them to Makurdi. I will take care of the little babies. And if their mothers want to go to school after the babies might have walked, they can continue and I will support them. If they don’t want to stay with me, I will take my children while they continue with their lives.
“I have been begging the mother since I disclosed this information to her that I am responsible for it and I will take care of it, but she is still angry. I know that what I did was wrong. It is a taboo, but it is late to correct it.”
Our correspondent also travelled from Lafia to Makurdi to meet one of the twin sisters, Philomina, who was seeing nursing her new born baby.
Philomina said she was in a dilemma, adding that she wished that all that had happened to her never did. She added that both she and her twin sister, Patricia, were in agony.
She said: “I can’t really explain how I found myself here. I didn’t know that the man was sleeping with my twin sister too. I know that he was dating my mother, but how he got to impregnate me, I don’t know.
“I think I have made one of the biggest mistakes ever. How did I get here? Augustine (Angwe) is my mum’s lover and I know it quite well. But every time he came visiting me in Akwanga, I just had this feeling. He is very attractive and there is a unique swag about him.
“I started messing with him in Akwanga. There was a time he came to Akwanga in the evening and decided to see me. My mum had travelled to Port Harcourt on a business trip. He called me to meet him in a beer palour and he was there alone drinking beer.
“We began to talk and I eased my way over to him. He was resistant at first, but that just made me more excited. I low key seduced him and our affair began. Every time my mum travelled, he would come over and have sex with me.
“I knew him when he started dating my mother and we were intimate right afterwards. So when I missed my period, it took me some time to disclose to him that he was responsible for it. I didn’t also know how to break the news to my mum
“Well, the worst has happened. My late father warned me not to do abortion and my child deserves to have a father. She will walk and I will return to school to pick up my life. That is all I have to say.
“As for getting married to him, she said it is not possible. I will further my education.”
Our correspondent also visited Gboko where Patricia was also nursing her new born baby boy.
She said: “The first day I had sex with Augustine, my mother went to Obi Market. It was in the morning. My mum left us at home. She forgot some money and returned to pick it.
“She almost caught us but I lied about it when she asked what we were doing. She suspected something, but the trust she has in Augustine convinced her.
“The thing is she got a glimpse of me while I was fixing my clothes up and asked why I got undressed in the morning hours.
“I told her I was trying out the new outfit I had just bought. In the whole of that time, Augustine was in the bathroom cooling off. She didn’t question me any further. She picked up her money and left.
“It was amazing. I see why my mum loves Augustine so much. So when she left, I decided we should have a second round, because I enjoyed it, and we continued at every little opportunity.
“When I missed my period, I was actually afraid to tell my mum that Augustine was responsible. I had thought about abortion to just mask everything, but remembering the warning our late father gave us about abortion, I decided to leave it.
“I have brought shame to my mother and the entire family. May God forgive all my sins. I never knew it would get to this level. I was doing it blindly and it has consumed me.”
On her future plans, she said she would hand the baby over to Angwe at the appropriate and move on with her life.
“I can’t marry him. I will nurture his son for him and walk away.”
Mr Clement Agbe, a relation to the late husband of Alice, said that what had happened in the family was strange to the culture of Tiv people.
“It is a taboo. But let’s see what the future holds for the new born babies. It is unthinkable.”
The Public Relations Officer of the Nasarawa State Police Command, Mr. Rahman Nansel, an Assistant Superintendent of Police, said the matter had not been reported to the command.
(The Nation)
