It is not the lure of foreign currencies that makes her want to fall in love with an overseas-based bachelor but the exposure.

Lawrence Enyoghasu

Tell the truth and shame the devil. If you are given the privilege of asking for one and only one gift this yuletide, what would that be? Just think about it! What would you ask for? If given such a privilege, there is no doubt that some ladies would ask for nothing but full successful husband material from overseas countries like Malaysia, China, United States, UK, Belgium, etc. We mean well-heeled husband stuff made of fresh, gleaming skin and costly neck and hand gold chains and wristwatch, to match. The Igbo have a saying about the dog asking its benefactor to throw the bone out to it in the dark and allow it to be the one to decide who will eventually emerge the winner in any battle that may ensue between it and the spirits, who, supposedly, might also be interested in the bone.

Women, keep your husbands at home

When opportunity knocks

If such opportunity or privilege is given to some ladies that this reporter happened to interact with, recently, they would go all out for it with all the means at their disposal – beguiling eyelashes, lipsticks, cosmetics, glowing skin, seductive catwalk, bare bosom, spaghetti wear, bum-short, hot pants, exotic perfume, just name it. As far as they are concerned in the battle for the hearts of the nouveau riche from overseas, whatever you can throw into the mix to win their hearts is allowed. The ladies involved are mostly city-based. But, if all it takes is to move down to their villages, this yuletide, to look for the big boys from overseas, they won’t mind. And, they don’t care. They are entrepreneurs, management staffs of companies, and celebrities in search of foreign-based bachelors who they feel are so cash-made as to fill up their dreams of a good husband.

Difference between Nigeria and overseas-based men

Omalicha Chinedu (not her real surname) is a middle-level management staff with one of the leading banks in the country. Hardly does she pass by and not get noticed. Men and women turn their heads to have a side view of her. She is a melanin goddess with attractive features of an African woman. Ordinarily, she is all that a man could wish for in a woman, yet, at 32, the hardworking lady does not have any man she hopes to walk down the aisle with, in her life.

For this reason, her plan, this yuletide, is to get one of the overseas-based returning bachelors to hook. The Abariba, Abia State-born lady said that she is fed up with trying to fall in love with Nigeria-based bachelors, noting that, “they have too much baggage and don’t even know how to treat a woman.”

Omalicha said that she does not care how others may see her position. “All that matters is my goal. If I fail or prosper in this life, it is my making,” she insists. “That’s why I am the one that will decide how to go about it. I was not all these ‘man-hunter’ before. I wish you met me then, you would have seen how nice and beautiful I was. Yet I didn’t brag about it or browbeat others with it. I was so beautiful that my cousins don’t let me know their husbands until after their wedding or on their wedding day. In essence, I was simple and easily accessible but men took me for granted. A guy once told me that I am too beautiful that he is sure he cannot compete with other admirers.”

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It was supposed to be a chance meeting with this reporter. But Omalicha made it look as if it was the opportunity she had been waiting for to pour out her pent-up feelings. “There is a mentality among Nigerian-based bachelors,” she said. “I don’t know what I will attribute it to but it is something I have noticed among most of them who have not traveled outside the shores of this country. They just don’t know how to cope with a beautiful and successful woman. Even when they tell you that they are fine and okay with you, they come up with all sorts of funny excuses all the time.”

Contrary to what you may think, for her, it is not the lure of foreign currencies that is making her want to fall in love with an overseas-based bachelor but the exposure. She said that such young men always come home during yuletide not only to paint the town red but to also look for decent wives. As a banker, Omalicha rarely observes her holidays. But she confided in this reporter that that has changed this year. She has asked for her annual leave to be scheduled to start this yuletide. “The advice came first from my mother but initially it did not make sense to me until last year December when my friend travelled and got married middle of this year. I pray such a thing happens to me.” You tried to tease her by asking what will happen if the trip turns out to be contrary to what she expected. She looked at you and retorted: “experience has no price.”

Looking for a cash-studded husband

But another lady, from Aguata in Anambra State, Blessing (surname withheld), 25, has a different agenda from Omalicha’s. While Omalicha is not after money, per se, Blessing who recently posted on her Facebook page and Twitter handle that she would not marry any man that earns below N100, 000 a month, is seriously concerned about what the profile of her husband-to-be is, on this area. By the way, it was that posting that attracted you to her in the first place, but before you could talk, she first of all let it be known that she is not a gold-digger.

“There is a difference between having money and having the mind to spend money,” she explained. “The few locally based bachelors that have money do not have the mind to spend it on the needs of their women. They are more about dates and hangouts but not the real needs of the woman. I have dated men at my young age and I know how they think. An overseas-based bachelor will want to provide for your need before he travels out and in the short period, he would want to make it up to you because he knows that a woman’s need is important. I think people like me are referred to as man-hunter on social media but the truth is, we are all hunting for something. Men give their condition in choosing a woman for themselves but when a woman gives her condition it is considered weird. I want, as a husband, an Igbo man who is not based in Nigeria.”

Blessing said that she has two close cousins and knows how they treat their partners here in Nigeria. “There is no better place to catch these kinds of men than in the village and mostly at yuletide period. My cousins are coming back home because one of them wants to marry and they are coming with their friends. My target is to get close to one of them. There is no morality or other consideration,” she stated.

A lady tells why she runs after overseas-based men

Like Blessing, Chidinma Okorie (not her real surname), from Orlu, Imo State, also wants to get close to one of the big boys. This is why she goes home every yuletide to her village with the hope of making her own catch, one of these days. And this year, things will not, in any way, be different. A marketing representative with a blue-chip company in Lagos, she told Saturday Sun that she does not miss spending her yuletide in her village because of the hope that eternally burns in her heart of getting hooked to one of the overseas-based bachelors. “They come home ready to have fun without strings,” she remarked. “They have the money to spend. What they want is your time. They are tired of being with white girls, which means when they are home, they enjoy the best of black girls.”

The dark-complexioned chubby lady said that one of her reasons for longing to get hooked to one of the overseas-based bachelors is to escape the stress of seeing one’s partner everyday in a relationship.“I noticed that there is a limit I can endure people mostly if I see them every day,” she told the reporter. “I can endure a poor guy that stays far away in another country more than I can a rich guy living on the same street with me.”

When asked if she was not afraid of being jilted by the overseas-based guys, she retorted: “Is it the local guys that are not into it? The most important thing is to pray for God’s favour and mercy. The road is rough and narrow; nobody knows where it may lead. We all only make plans according to the height we can see.” If there are ladies like Omalicha, Blessing and Chidinma that are engaged in husband-hunt from among overseas returnees, this yuletide, we wish them well.

Marriage is not for everyone