"Oge ré mi fọ́" means "Vanity destroyed me" in Yoruba language. The novel highlights how spoiling a child leads to terrible results in future. However, some children rise above bad parental training and examples and end up well.
CHAPTER 1 : Ládélé is an indigene of Akẹ́lẹ́mù, near Oyo town in Oyo State. From his Primary 3 days, he has decided to be either a Customs officer or a policeman because of the bribes he would get. He says he will rather use his child for money rituals rather than be poor. His father , Ògúntọ̀míwá, is a renowned herbalist. Ládélé's mother is Ògúntọ̀míwá's favourite wife. Ládélé too becomes a herbalist under his father's tutelage. He has been making charms for criminals before graduating from primary school. He is skilled in soccer and speaks good English. He rejects the pregnancies of 3 of his female customers, who dare not complaint because of his spiritual powers.
After leaving primary school, he gets into the Police Force. His smartness gets him posted to the office of the Commissioner of Police right after graduating from the police training college. Three months later, his immediate boss (Inspector Adérìntọ́) is dismissed from the force for trying to pervert the course of justice. Ládélé goes scotfree as a subordinate officer, who must obey his bosses' orders without asking questions. His handwriting attracts the attention of the Commissioner, who makes him his confidant and favourite. Ládélé's superiors and many influential people in the society have to befriend and bribe him before getting the Commissioner's favor. He has many girlfriends and 2 children from his 2 wives. He builds 2 bungalows and a 2-storey building.
Then he meets and falls in love with Músílì , a popular woman selling fabrics to the high and mighty (including the Commissioner of Police).
CHAPTER 2 : Their love affair is the talk of Ọdẹ́dá and Idi Radio, especially among the police officers. Her earlier lovers back off because of Ládélé's greater wealth and charms. Músílì has 2 children from 2 earlier husbands but insists on a statutory marriage (which makes him divorce his 2 earlier wives) and a lavish traditional wedding (as for a spinster bride). Ládélé doesn't mind the cost (including having to sell off his 2 bungalows) because he will get enough bribe at his office to settle any debt. However, the lavish wedding attracts his senior colleagues' attention and they start monitoring him more closely at work. The police commissioner gets promoted to an AIG while Ládélé is posted out to Múwọnlẹ́rú Police Station. Músílì has 5 children (Bọ́sẹ̀dé , Abíọ́dún and 3 sons, in that order) for Ládélé.
CHAPTER 3 : Bọ́sẹ̀dé(Músílì 's firstborn child with Ládélé) attends a private primary school owned by Dr Búsàrí Òjó in Ibadan. When Mr Àjàyí canes Bọ́sẹ̀dé for cutting a fellow pupil's skin on the arm with a blade, Músílì alerts the family's standby lawyer (paid a salary even before any legal battle ensues) and goes to the school to beat up the teacher. She then reports to the police. Dr Òjó is out of the country . His second-in-command has to beg many influential people to beg Ládélé and Músílì against getting Mr Àjàyí jailed. Ládélé said they should have asked him to pay the other pupil's hospital expenses instead of caning his child. When she later continues her bad behaviour after the incident, Dr Búsàrí Òjó expels Bọ́sẹ̀dé from his school. Ládélé is angry but his lawyer explains that he has the legal right do so. Ládélé takes Bọ́sẹ̀dé and Abíọ́dún to a private school, where he deposits ₦0.5 million, enough to pay their school fees for 5 years. The new school's staff agree not to cane Ládélé's children for any reason. Bọ́sẹ̀dé acts anyhow but Abíọ́dún is disciplined and often refutes Bọ́sẹ̀dé's lies against the teachers. Even then, Ládélé and his wife insist that the children's tolerance levels differ. Jídé and Kọ́lá are just as spoilt as Bọ́sẹ̀dé and attend the same school with their sisters. The school proprietor rejoices when Bọ́sẹ̀dé graduates and goes to a secondary school. He has merely been tolerating Bọ́sẹ̀dé's excesses because his school is newly-founded and needs money. Ládélé has been sponsoring many of the school's projects. Abíọ́dún is both brilliant and well-mannered.
Ládélé also bribes Bọ́sẹ̀dé's secondary school proprietor into laxity. By JSS 3, Bọ́sẹ̀dé has become a prostitute, drug addict and cultist. She gets pregnant for Abíọ́nà in SSS 1 and has to stop schooling. If not for Abíọ́nà's wealth, Ládélé would have sent him to prison for truncating her education. Bọ́sẹ̀dé herself tells Ládélé not to punish him.
CHAPTER 4: Ládélé throws a lavish
wedding for Bọ́sẹ̀dé and Abíọ́nà, just before his due retirement. He has sold 2 of his 3 houses to finance his wedding to Músílì decades ago. He is now much poorer and loses his wife's respect and fidelity. Ládélé doesn't have enough money to bribe his sons' way out of going to prison for an offence. Bọ́sẹ̀dé is possessive and wrecks Abíọ́nà's pharmacy business by fighting his female customers. When Bọ́sẹ̀dé gives birth to their first child, she and Músílì compel Abíọ́nà to throw a lavish naming ceremony. Abíọ́nà has to sell off his car. Bọ́sẹ̀dé resumes her adultery and later marries Abídọlá as her second husband. She frustrates Abídọlá's first wife (the mother of his three children) out of his home after getting pregnant for him. She is also hostile to his relatives and friends. After their child Rọ́pò's naming ceremony, she resumes her adultery and later marries Johnson when Abídọlá's business fails. She has a child for Johnson too. Johnson beats her frequently for not stopping her adultery. They eventually part ways.
CHAPTER 5: Bọ́sẹ̀dé decides to live alone in order to get full sexual freedom. When she can't renew her rent, she moves back to her parents' house. She, they and their grandchildren manage Ládélé's little pension. They live together in the upper floor of the building while their tenants fill the lower floor. Bọ́sẹ̀dé continues her prostitution with the aid of charms. Abíọ́dún often comes from her husband's house to warn her to no avail. She is the only good one among Músílì 's children. Her real biological father is a policeman who couldn't afford to drag her paternity with Ládélé. Bọ́sẹ̀dé's parents side her in evil. When Bọ́sẹ̀dé's prostitution business wanes, she turns to buying and reselling stolen clothes. She is caught by the police 2 years later but her father bribes the way for her release. None of her 3 ex-husbands is ready to take her back or cater for their child. Bọ́sẹ̀dé later marries a younger man nicknamed Pàrómà. Pàrómà sells illicit drugs at motor parks and beats her up every other day. It is his way of curing her indiscipline. He rapes her after beating her up at night. His neighbours are too hardened to come to her aid. Wherever she flees to her father's house, Pàrómà would come and beg for her return, only to beat her again. When she eventually refuses to return to his house, he beats her up thrice in her father's house before being warned by the police.
CHAPTER 6: Bọ́sẹ̀dé's ex-husbands doubt her children's paternity and refuse to help her with them. Two of her sons are caught by the police for oil theft. Ládélé fails to secure their release because of the incorruptible police boss. His charms also fail to get them released. Ládélé dies and Músílì follows him to the grave 3 months later. Bọ́sẹ̀dé's sons get life imprisonment. She uses her father's house to get a ₦500,000 loan to bribe her sons' prison warder boss into releasing them. Before the day they are to be released, the prison boss is transferred elsewhere after a prison riot. The new prison boss is incorruptible. Her creditors only allow her to live in one room without collecting any rent from her tenants until she repays the loan. When Abíọ́dún gets wind of the situation and decides to repay the loan, the creditors use charms to get Bọ́sẹ̀dé to sell the house for ₦1 million. They give Bọ́sẹ̀dé only the balance of ₦500,000 because of her unpaid loan. The next day, Pàrómà (Bọ́sẹ̀dé's ex-husband) and his gang rob her of the money and take turns to rape her. It's too late for Abíọ́dún to redeem the house.
CHAPTER 7: Bọ́sẹ̀dé's creditors rent a room for her near her father's house and pay 3 years' rent. She uses cosmetics and skin bleaching to enhance her prostitution business. She sells alcoholic drinks at a motor park, where she meets men of her age. Bleaching creams give her skin different colours yet she can't stop because of the withdrawal symptoms (e.g. skin itching). Her offensive body odour (caused by bleaching) chases her customers away and ends her prostitution and alcohol businesses. She then turns to illegal mining of gold, silver, etc. On her way to the mining site one day, her vehicle collides with a trailer. All the passengers survive with serious injuries and need to have their skins stitched. Bleaching has weakened Bọ́sẹ̀dé's skin so she doesn't survive the surgery (unlike all the other passengers). Her last words were," Vanity destroyed me. It made me sell off my father's house, bleach my skin, sell my body,..."
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