The alarm clock hanging on the living room wall chimed precisely at 1:00 AM.
She raised her head from looking at the clock and directed her gaze to the TV, watching Al Jazeera...
She was seated on the sofa, dressed in a slippery, pure white nightgown.
She wasn't overwhelmingly beautiful, just moderately so, but she was a woman of absolute class.
Right on the tip of her nose was a natural mole she was born with, which suited her well given her fair complexion.
Sitting there, she heard the car of her father pull up. If she was used to anything, it was this habit of her father and her husband—going out at night or returning late at night. It was even better with her father, a politician who served as the Deputy Governor of Kebbi State. They frequently held midnight meetings, sometimes gathering right at their house where she could hear their commotion from her own apartment.
Not long after the car stopped, she heard him slip into his private wing. She yawned and stretched in a sleepy daze just as he walked into the living room holding a large football in his hand.
He wasn't startled in the least by seeing his wife sitting up waiting for him at this hour, because she was used to it.
She cast her eyes toward him, watching him with a blank expressionless face. He tossed the ball he was holding aside and slipped off his socks while keeping his eyes locked on her.
By the time he finished taking them off, he let out a soft sigh of relief. All his focus and attention were on her; he found himself overwhelmed. There was a unique, tender look in the depths of her eyes that Allah did not bestow upon just any woman. He walked toward her with a majestic, confident stride, sat right next to him—wait, next to her—and placed his hand over hers.
"Please forgive me, Iman, as always, playing football is something..." He trailed off, silenced by the intense look she gave him.
"To my knowledge, football is played in the afternoon or morning, but as for you guys, I don't know what kind of game you play that has to be done strictly at night."
He stared at her intently.
"Iman, do you not trust me, or are you doubting me?"
"It's not doubt, rather I just want you to tell me the truth. Aside from your bank salary, are you implying that all this vast wealth you've accumulated came entirely from football?" He nodded his head.
"Indeed. Go and ask around, any professional footballer who travels abroad makes a substantial amount of money. Trust me, the namesake of my mother, I have no evil nature that would ever harm you."
She fell silent, tears welling up in her eyes. She couldn't bring herself to fully trust her husband and her father. Between my father and my husband, I cannot say who loves and cares for me more. Yet, despite the wealth, she hated seeing it because she suspected the source. She wiped the tears from her face. He looked at her with pure love and deep sympathy, feeling her presence deep within his soul. He himself didn't know the extent of the love he held for Fatima. He cupped her face with his palms, using his thumb to wipe away her tears.
"My greatest distress is seeing you in pain. Just when will you learn to trust me, Iman? If you don't trust me, then who will? Wallahi, I am a footballer, please stop doubting me."
She drew a deep breath and released a faint, weary smile as she looked at him.
"I trust you, my husband, but I want you to be careful, tread lightly through this world, and fear Allah." His body softened.
He said, "Insha Allah, Iman." He took her hand and they stood up. He went over himself to turn off the TV and everything else. She stood with her arms crossed over her chest, watching him with profound love and affection. He turned back and looked at her.
"Let's go..." She turned and he followed behind her. As they climbed the stairs, neither spoke, each lost in their own private thoughts.
She walked toward the room of her younger sister, Fauxiya, gently pushed the door open, and stepped inside. She found her fast asleep; the room was chilled by the AC, and Fauxiya was curled up tightly, apparently feeling very cold. She turned to look at him.
"You see? Fauxiya never listens. No matter how much I talk to her about turning off this AC, she just won't listen."
Ahmed walked over, turned off the AC, picked up a blanket, and draped it over her after adjusting her sleeping position. She walked over to the edge of the bed and sat down, whispering a silent prayer for her before they left the room.
He headed straight to the bathroom to take a shower. As he was getting ready for bed, she walked in holding a cup of coffee. He took it from her with a smile, saying,
"Thank you, wify." She smiled and sat on the edge of the bed, watching him.
Once he finished the coffee, he turned, kissed her on the forehead, and said goodnight. Before she could even reply, he fell onto the bed and lay down. She followed him with her gaze, overwhelmed by self-pity as tears spilled from her eyes.
What kind of life is this? What kind of marriage is this? I am a doctor, and my husband works at a bank. If he leaves early in the morning, I won't lay eyes on him again until 6:00 PM when he showers, eats, and dashes out again, not returning until 1:00 or 2:00 AM, and sometimes only coming back at dawn under the pretext of going to football training.
Today marks two weeks since I last had him; I need my husband and I have my rights over him, but he doesn't care. Because I have strong desires—unlike him—even if we went a whole month like this, he wouldn't mind.
As his wife and life partner, he has no time to sit with me, and whenever I bring up his late-night outings, he tells me I'm not being understanding about the massive workload waiting for him at the bank, and that at night he has to go to football training.
I lack no food, drink, or clothing, but I lack the care and love of my husband—the very foundation of a marriage. I am not satisfied with my husband, and on top of that, his constant absence from home...
My father is a politician who is never around. If he's not out of town, flying to another country today and somewhere else tomorrow, even when he is home you won't see him until late at night. Whenever I approach him with complaints about my husband's late-night exits, he merely says,
"You just have to exercise patience, since even me, your father, you can see we are men who never stay in one place. We hold very important meetings late at night. Since he told you they go for football training, just be patient and let it go; everything has its time."
She wiped her tears, filled with astonishment at her father's words.
Two years since the death of my mother, I have no one in this world except my father and my husband, and my younger sister, Fauxiya. I don't know who to take my cries to so they can wipe my tears. That's why even when I go to work, my mind is consumed by thoughts of my father and my husband. Everyone faces challenges in life, and it is up to us to accept those challenges and face whatever way life comes at us...
Noticing she hadn't come to bed yet, he turned back to look at her.
"Are you alright, Iman? What are you thinking about?" She stood up quickly, saying, "It's nothing," and headed toward the bathroom, where she turned on the shower and wept bitterly where he couldn't hear her...
Dedicated this book to:
Rabi'atu Sk Mhs
Sadiya Lawal Bala
Aysher Gambo
BABANA DA MIJINA (My Father and My Husband)
© Fertymerh Xarah
(Translation note: Chapters 2, 3, and 4 continue the dark, supernatural thriller plot where Ahmed and Alhaji Abdallah have unknowingly or knowingly traded loved ones' lives to a sinister occult entity named Sima in exchange for wealth, political power, and status, creating a chilling web of deception behind their seemingly normal lives.)

Summary

• The Midnight Vigil & Growing Suspicion (Chapter 1): Set in Birnin Kebbi, Dr. Fatima (Iman)—a high-class doctor and wife to Ahmed—waits up past 1:00 AM for her husband, echoing her father's (the Deputy Governor) habitual late-night disappearances. When Ahmed returns from his supposed "football training," Iman confronts him about his suspicious wealth and strange nocturnal schedule. Although Ahmed reassures her with affection and smooth talk, Iman remains deeply unsettled, torn between her distant, unyielding husband and her equally detached, politically consumed father.
• Ahmed’s Dark Origins (Chapter 2): Flashbacks reveal Ahmed's tragic past. After his pious father died, he and his mother, Inna, fell into extreme poverty. When Inna fell critically ill with ulcers and hypertension, a desperate Ahmed failed to secure a legal job or loans. In his desperation at the hospital, he was approached by a mysterious criminal ("Oga Nas") who recruited him into a violent syndicate of armed robbers and occult blood-sacrifices in exchange for quick wealth.
• The Price of Political Power (Chapter 3): Parallel to Ahmed's descent, Alhaji Abdallah (Iman's father and the Deputy Governor) is shown to have achieved his immense political stature by collaborating with a dark occult figure named Sima, sacrificing his eldest son, Nasir, and preparing to trade more lives to secure higher political office. Sima rejects ordinary blood and demands specific, close targets.

• The Looming Catastrophe (Chapter 4): Back in the present timeline, while Iman studies late into the night, her younger brothers Musa and Ismail are given drugged yogurt by their own father under Sima's hypnotic influence, leading to their tragic deaths. Meanwhile, as political pressures mount, Alhaji Abdallah contemplates sacrificing his own wife, Mami, to secure the presidency in the upcoming elections, completely blind to the monstrous web of destruction he has woven around his family.

  Description

  This gripping Hausa domestic thriller masterfully blends political ambition, psychological tension, and dark occult horror. The narrative centers on Dr. Fatima (Iman), a woman caught between two powerful, secretive men: her husband Ahmed and her father Alhaji Abdallah. While Iman suffers from emotional neglect, loneliness, and nagging suspicions regarding their sudden, unexplainable wealth, the narrative gradually unveils a terrifying truth.
  The story utilizes a stark contrast between high-society comfort and visceral, corrupt horror. Beneath the veneer of elite status, banking careers, and political governance lies a gruesome underworld fueled by blood sacrifices, pacts with occult entities, and the ultimate betrayal of familial love for worldly power.

  Literary Analytics

• The Motif of Isolation and Night: The author heavily utilizes nighttime settings (1:00 AM, midnight meetings, clandestine errands) as a symbolic veil for hidden truths. The night represents deception, where the true, monstrous nature of the male figures is concealed from the innocent women.
• Dramatic Irony: A profound sense of dread permeates the text through dramatic irony. While Iman laments her lack of intimacy and her husband's bizarre "football training," the reader already knows the grotesque reality—that Ahmed's wealth stems from blood money and armed robbery, and her father's political rise is built over the corpses of his own children.
• Character Dualities (The Protector as the Predator): Both Ahmed and Alhaji Abdallah are initially framed as loving family men who care for their dependents' physical needs (food, shelter, luxury). However, this creates a chilling subversion: the men trusted to protect the household are simultaneously the architects of its destruction.
• The Cost of Materialism: The narrative serves as a sharp moral critique of unchecked greed and the desperate pursuit of status. Both Ahmed (driven by poverty and his mother's medical bills) and Alhaji Abdallah (driven by political hunger) choose short-term earthly power over human life, illustrating how moral compromise consumes everything one sets out to protect.