Renowned actor and cultural icon, Chief Kareem Adepoju, popularly known as Baba Wande, revealed that he has multiple wives and is open to the possibility of marrying more.
Baba Wande state this in a recent interview, He said:
I have many wives. I can’t say the number since I have not stopped; I can still marry another woman.
During the period of stage plays, when there were no televisions, anywhere we went, if there were no ladies in our group, the people would not come out to watch us. Our plays also centred on women most of the time.
Sometimes after ladies had been trained for their roles, some parents would show up on days we ought to perform to withdraw our female theatre group members, thereby throwing our plans into shambles. That was why Baba Oyin Adejobi thought of taking them as wives. Things are a little better now because parents are now allowing their children to do theatre. During our period, parents did not allow their children to join theatre groups.
At almost 90 years of age, you say you still want more wives?
Yes, of course. But I am not yet 90, please. In any case, age has nothing to do with polygamy. If I had the chance, I would marry more wives because God tells us to marry and multiply.
But you need energy to perform the conjugal rights.
Only God grants this energy. God is the One feeding us. A mistake we often make is to wonder where to get the money to feed them, forgetting that we cannot feed them by ourselves. God is the One feeding us all.
What have been your experiences on polygamy and why are you in support of it?
I will not condemn either monogamy or polygamy. Each of them has its advantages. Let me quickly tell you a story. One time, I fell ill and one of my wives was not around. Because she was not my only wife, my other wives nursed me and I got better. Had I had only one wife, I would have suffered a lot. Another thing is that instead of a man being promiscuous, you marry more than one wife so that you will see all the qualities you are looking for in a woman. In essence, polygamy gives room for various beauties, complexions, behaviours, etc. If one of the wives is good at cooking, another may be good at washing; one may be light, another may be black; one may be prayerful, the others may be good at different other things. So, you don’t have to look outside at all. All you are looking for are present in all of your wives. Polygamy promotes fidelity. You have heard of one-wife men who impregnated their house maids. It is not that they want to marry them; it is just that as African men, one woman is just not enough for them to sleep with all the time.
If a man marries one wife, if he is bound to face problems, he will face them. I have seen a lot of men who married one wife but later divorced. I have also seen men who married more than one wife and they have all lived together for long. That is the way life is. The advantage I see about marrying more than one wife is that you will find all you want in a woman in them. Their characters and attributes can never be the same.
One of my wives once travelled to visit her daughter. If she had been my only wife, I would have suffered while she was away visiting her daughter. Monogamists will realise their folly in their old ages when their only wives go away to take care of their grandchildren.
