LAGOS factory worker Uche Emeka Benjamin has taken to his heals after his wife delivered their third set of twins amid fears that the responsibility of looking after them will be too big a burden to carry.
Apparently, Mr Uche, 39, fled from their family home as far back as February when he learnt that his expectant wife was carrying a set of twins. Immediately, his wife, Ruth, 34, from Abia State, told him that she was expecting their third set of twins, he took to his heels.
Exasperated at the frustrating situation, Ruth visited the Lagos State Secretariat, Alausa yesterday with her six children, pleading for help. In 2009 when she first conceived, she had two girls Goodness and Godnews, while the second set, two years later, produced a boy and a girl, named John and Joyce.
When her husband, Emeka, learnt that the third pregnancy was another set of two he fled their number 32, Awori Street, Agege home on the outskirts of Lagos to an undisclosed location in Ikorodu, Lagos. Their third set of twins arrived last month and were named Daniel and Daniella but Mrs Uche said she could no longer cope with their needs including food, clothes, drugs and school fees. She added that her meagre earnings as a teacher in a private school in Lagos can no longer meet their needs. Mrs Uche recalled that she never wanted the third pregnancy but her use of traditional means of family planning, failed her.
Mrs Uche said: “I met my husband in 2002 but we got married in 2008. We met in the village at Umuahia and I don’t want to leave the children and run away, which is why I want the government to help us. “I was using traditional way of family planning where I calculate some days before having intercourse and it was working for me but as you can see my first set of twins is four years old. You know as women, we cannot deny our husband that thing whenever they request for it and whenever I mistakenly take in, he would say that I was pretending.
" She added that sometimes, she would go through the long process to abort the pregnancy but after that, another one would happen. Mrs Uche stressed that even with the latest pregnancy, he husband still insisted that she was pretending until the pregnancy became obvious.
“My church was responsible for the payment of the first delivery, paying N120,000 for the delivery of the first set of twins. The two deliveries of the twins have been through caesarean section for which we paid N120,000 each, although the last twins are through normal delivery,” Mrs Uche added.
She explained that her husband, a factory worker in Iju Road, Agege, has since refused to pick her calls, although she learnt that he stays in Ikorodu. To make matters worse for Mrs Uche, she said her elder brother, who could have also helped, is very angry with her for giving birth to another set of twins. Mrs Uche added: "He warned me before not to have any other child after the two sets of twins, especially with the kind of husband I have. I cannot put my hands in blood shedding by committing abortion, so I want Nigerians to help me because there is nobody to pay their school fees.
