Comrade Hassan Sunmonu is the pioneer president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and a former Secretary General, Organisation of African Trade Union (OATU). He got married to his wife, Alhaja Wasilat Titilayo Sunmonu, a retired Chief Education Officer in Lagos State on September 7 1969, nearly 54 years ago. The 84-year-old ex-labour leader got married on the same day with his twin brother. In this interview with LATEEF DADA, in Osogbo, Comrade and Alhaja Sunmonu share their marital experiences and things that make a marriage last or crash. They also shared their experience on how to cope with family and children in marriage.
Can you remember the first time you saw your wife?
Comrade Hassan: I cannot remember the specific date but I saw her with her older brother, the late Alhaji Rasheed Agboola, who was my classmate in both primary and secondary schools.
When he approached you, how did you feel?
Alhaja Wasilat: As he rightly said, I’ve been seeing him with my late older brother in school because I was very close to my brother. I usually took food to my brother, particularly during Ramadan at the boarding house. I knew him then but not on loving terms. We only exchanged greetings.
How did he now reach out to you?
Alhaja Wasilat: I would say through the Muslim Students Society. He was the national auditor of MSSN and I was an active member at Yejide Girls Grammar School, Ibadan. Though I was practising my religion secretly, because Muslim students were not admitted directly. I attended Ansarudeen in Osogbo which he also attended but not at the same time.
What in particular attracted you to her?
Comrade Hassan: The family background, piety and good manners attracted me. We are from the same area in Osogbo. She’s from the Onimajesin compound while I hailed from the Odeyemi compound very close to each other. I’ve met several ladies before. Myself and my twin brother promised to marry at the same time when we were 10 years old. I thank God we eventually married on the same date 7th September 1969 at Yaba College of Technology, Lagos.
Did anybody oppose your marriage in your family?
Alhaja Wasilat: Not at all. We knew each other. Just as he said, we are from the same area.
It seems you attached great importance to knowing the background of a potential spouse. Why?
Comrade Hassan: It is very, very important because it is not good to have a bad in-law, even if you marry a bad girl. Not only should you be satisfied with the person you want to get married to, but you must also know the parent and family where your intended wife is coming from. When you mention Onimajesin compound in Osogbo, they will tell you more about the family.
Would your parent have disallowed you if they didn’t like the background of your suitor?
Alhaja Wasilat: They would have disallowed me because parents wouldn’t want their children to go into a house that has a bad record. Marriage is a dark institution. You don’t know what you are going to meet there. So, you have to start with a very good background. It is necessary.
You’re rich, and your religion allows polygamy. Why didn’t you marry a second wife?
Comrade Hassan: The condition is that if you know you won’t discriminate between them. What Islam says is that you should marry one wife, then if you have the capacity, marry the second, the third, and the fourth. So, no Muslim is compelled to marry more than one wife. It is conditional to marry more than one wife. If you have love, satisfaction and happiness with the one you have, why do you want to marry a second or third wife? I have a Somali friend in Accra, late Alli Ibrahim. He said if you marry one wife, you have one problem, if you marry two wives, you have two problems.
If he had attempted to marry another wife, would you have allowed it?
Alhaja Wasilat: It depends on the individual. Of course, like any other woman, I would have been annoyed. But if he has cogent reasons to convince me, I will allow it.
Did you have an agreement that he won’t marry another wife?
Alhaja Wasilat: There was no agreement.
How have you sustained the relationship till today?
Comrade Hassan: We thank Almighty Allah. Nobody is perfect. The credit goes to Allah who made it possible. Allah has made us compatible. We have great respect for each other and we are both practising Muslims. I’m a member of Ahmadiyah Muslim Jamah of Nigeria; their family is Ansarudeen. She became a member of Ahmadiyah Muslim Jamah the day we got married and she has been very active both here and when we were in Ghana. Allah has given us understanding. We have quarrels but that doesn’t last more than five minutes. When our children were growing up, we practised what we call family popular participation where our children take part in the discussion, express anger, and resolutions made immediately. We solve our problems in our house. We don’t take our problems outside, not even to our relatives.
How do you manage your husband in times of anger?
Alhaja Wasilat: I thank Allah. I hardly see him get angry. He is never annoyed. He only advises. It is difficult to see him annoyed openly or scolding me. Not even the children have seen such. He has never. Alhamdulillah (I thank Allah) that I’m lucky.
How do you manage unionism without allowing it to affect marital life?
Comrade Hassan: The secret is that when I leave my home, none of my problems follow me to the office. Any problem I have in the office will be dropped at the office. I don’t take problems home from the office. Allah has given me that gift. Also, my father told me ‘When you are annoyed, avoid four things. Don’t speak, don’t write, don’t react physically by trying to beat or fight, and leave the scene of the anger for about an hour. I practised it in the early part of our marriage. She annoyed me and I remember my father’s advice. I left Akoka with my motorcycle and I went to the Federal Palace Hotel on Victoria Island and stood there, nursing a bottle of Coca Cola. I returned home after an hour. My wife just knelt and apologised when I got home. That was the first and last time.
Were you and your children afraid when your husband was in the struggle?
Alhaja Wasilat: At that time, our children were too young to be left alone. There was a particular incident that made me afraid. That was minimum wage struggle of May 1981. It was tough. I knew when my husband was going to work, but when and if he would be coming back, I didn’t know. The order of the day was killing. There was a day President Sheu Shagari sent for my husband to come to Ribadu Road and my husband refused. He said, tell the president I won’t come. The second time, he sent Sheu Musa, the Secretary to the government then, but my husband said he wouldn’t go. I just told him, they may kill you. For a president to send for you and you refused, it is dangerous. My husband said he had given them a 21-day ultimatum but they didn’t do anything. It remains one day to start the action. He said: “If I go, the workers will say I’ve sold out, so I will not go. The third time, Sheu Musa was sent again. My husband said he would go if they allowed his twin brother to follow him and his deputy, John Jubril of blessed memory. This happened at midnight. Jubril was president of NUPENG. He was very loyal. I was so afraid because the conditions he gave the government were too much for Nigeria’s president. Eventually, they agreed to his condition. He maintained his position that the strike would start tomorrow. A US-based Nigerian Athlete, Dele Udoh, was killed for no reason at Ojuelegba. He went to buy something outside. I was afraid. My husband said if you see me, fine if you don’t see me, at least, one of us will be allowed to return to tell you the story. I sat with the children thinking and praying. I thank Allah that he came back alive.
Didn’t you consider your wife and the children when they asked you to shift grounds and you refused?
Comrade Wasilat: I had a mentor, the late Comrade Wahab Goodluck who taught me the A, B, and C of trade unionism. What he taught me in 10 years of working with him, I’ve not exhausted what I learned from him. One of the things that we learned from veterans like that is that when you are elected a leader, your members have entrusted their trust in you. To betray that trust will be an unpardonable offence. I was not the most brilliant, I was not even rich but the workers of Nigeria saw something in me to trust me for leadership. That is why death means nothing to me in the course of my duty. I believe that betrayal is worse than death. That was why I have a lion’s heart not to succumb to any threat or inducement from anybody at the local, national, and even international levels.
Why do you think marriages crash nowadays?
Alhaja Wasilat: We have different characters. Children nowadays love money too much. Money should not be the determinant of everything. Of course, money is important, but it should not be by all means. Peace in a relationship is better than money. Love of money, if it is too much, you will go to any length. No matter what your husband does, you will be annoyed. Also, there is a need to believe in God which I think is lacking in today’s marriage. The children of today go about exposing their husbands. Women don’t want to know where their husbands get money, they just talk around, reporting their husbands saying ‘My husband gives me N1,000 and I will make the house hot for him.’ That is their song and practice today.
How much was your salary when you married?
Comrade Hassan: My wife was earning 13 pounds seven and six. I remember we prepared for our marriage in three months. We told our wives in June that we were going to do the wedding in September. Our parents asked how much we had that we wanted to get married, and I said God would provide. We collected the ‘esusu’ (contribution) we had. We closed the insurance and asked for our money. It remained 200 pounds to cover the budget, so we went to one of the top officers of the Federal Ministry of Works, the late David Olubode, to borrow 200 pounds. We went to Ilorin for Aso Oke. Alhaji Isa Elelu paid for the clothes as his contribution to the marriage. Late Olubode gave us his new Peugeot. He was the chairman of the programme. He said he had always admired us because we came from Osogbo and we never joined bad gangs. The car arrived on that day.
How did you intend to go home on your wedding day?
Comrade Hassan: We wanted to go from Yaba College to Surulere by taxi. So, we had concluded to hire a taxi when the new car of Baba Olubode came. It seemed the man planned it.
How has Allah blessed the marriage?
Alhaja Wasilat: How many of Allah’s blessings will I count? We’ve had so many tribulations. Allah has blessed us. He gave us both males and females, and not just children, but children that you can be proud of. I can only say that I’m lucky. I left my work when he was going to OATU and the children were young. We didn’t have any children after we left home. Only those we took there are the children we had. I was the Treasurer of the Secondary School Teachers of Nigeria Union of Teachers in Lagos before he became the labour leader. I said the two of us could not be unionists. It is time-consuming. It was not good for the two of us to be going from morning till evening, moving from meeting to meeting. It looks like we were made together and we didn’t know.
Your advice to the bachelors?
Comrade Hassan: Bachelors need to be prayerful. Marriage is not what one can determine with common sense, you have to allow God to choose for you. I was jilted four times but I concluded that it was better to be jilted than to marry an unfaithful wife. I allowed Allah to choose for me.
How old were you when you married?
Comrade Hassan: I was about 30. I’m now 82 plus and she’s 78. We were born in the same month and on the same date. We were born on January 7 1941 and 1945 respectively.
Your advice to ladies?
Alhaja Wasilat: My advice to them is that they should be patient. They should believe in God and that there is nothing that happens without the knowledge of God. They should also be careful in choosing friends. Background usually affects some girls in their marriage. I’m from a polygamous house, likewise my husband, but it did not affect us. Ladies just have to be patient and careful. They should avoid unnecessary comparisons of husbands. My own gives me N10,000, her husband gives her N20,000. Four people were living with us including my sister, his sisters, and a brother. They helped me in looking after the children. So, it pays me. Ladies don’t want to see the family of their husbands today, which is not part of our culture. So, they should be prayerful, they should patient, and not compare.