The crazy antics men get up to when jilted

By Anthony Ngatia

A famous quote has been rewritten to read: Hell hath no fury like a man jilted.

While men are fond of bragging about the long list of women they have conquered and then booted, few will want to talk about what they do when they are on the receiving end.

When a man falls for a woman, he falls hard. Social commentators have taken the matter further and say that in extreme circumstances, women can become evil and men stupid.

The reactions and antics of jilted men always amuse me. While some are hilarious, others are quite ridiculous and resemble scenes straight from Hekaya Za Abunwas!

John Oloo, alias Masikonde as he is popularly known in Kisumu’s Kondele slum, was a self-respecting, God fearing man. His wife, a teacher at a primary school not far from their home, was a stunning beauty who made many a man’s head turns whenever she passed. This is partly why Oloo fell for her.

But some men will always lust after the grass across the fence thinking it is greener, and Oloo started an affair with a woman who lived not far from their home.

Soon rumours started doing the rounds but Mrs Oloo was not the type to believe everything she heard. But as they say, the days of a thief are numbered and one day, Oloo’s wife was alerted that her husband was right at that moment in the woman’s house. And lo and behold, she caught them red-handed when she stormed the house.

Foolish and pitiful

In a pique, she packed her belongings and took their two children with her to a rental house near her place of work.

When Oloo came to his senses, he realised that he could not let go of his dear wife. He could not imagine her moving in with another man.

In the next weeks, what followed was a drama so comical, foolish and pitiful it might have been a scene from one of those love stories concerning the gods in ancient Greece.

He started by making phone calls to his estranged wife apologising for his betrayal. He sent emissary after emissary, whom he paid handsomely paid to persuade her to come back but to no avail. Finally he hatched a plot. He would abduct her and plead with her face to face. He sought the help of some local hatchet men and paid each Sh5,000 to go and abduct her. According to the plan, they would them telephone him so that he could have a face-to-face discussion with her. Days turned into weeks with no progress being made, and poor Oloo finally had to concede that he had been swindled.

Then he sought assistance from his in-laws, who however told him to go and solve his differences with his wife. Without any help forthcoming, Oloo turned to stalking his estranged wife all the time. When he realised that this wasn’t helping, he went to the school where his wife taught and knelt before her to the consternation of the teachers and children who witnessed the spectacle. It was assembly day, and many saw him.

exciting drama

The children though, had never witnessed such exciting drama. By the time the distraught, drunken man was finally whisked out of the school compound by watchmen, he had conveyed his message to his wife: Please come back home, I’m desperate for you!

Last year in Nyahururu, a young man was restrained from diving into Thompson Falls because he had been left by the girlfriend he was planning to marry. Although he was lucky to escape death, he was subjected to some disciplining by his scandalised rescuers for his folly. Besides, he earned himself a place in the police cells and later a one-month jail term.

Police Constable Juma Wario’s story adds a zany twist to the weird ways of jilted men. While working in Nanyuki, a place reputed for the abundance of good looking women who will not hesitate to snatch the man they fancy, he interacted with many of them on a daily basis.

Flirting with them became his favoured preoccupation and booze. The result of his industry in these matters was a burgeoning harem comprising of bar maids, beauty salon attendants, shop attendants and even college girls.

Curious onlookers

One day, he went to visit one of his girlfriends at her house with the intention of spending the night with her as he had done often. But to his shock, he met another man making love to her.

All hell broke loose in the rather quiet neighbourhood. He whipped out his pistol and shot a number of times into the house aiming to kill the two lovebirds.

The gunfire attracted curious onlookers who came to establish the cause of this commotion. Wisely, the two lovebirds had locked themselves in the house. The cuckolded man was now crying hysterically and shouting all manner of dirty expletives mindless of the children and women present.

He would have been forgiven had he not tried to attack one of the onlookers. He was beaten into a comma by the provoked mob before being carried away by police.

From Embu, Anthony Ireri talks of this young man who took an herbicide to the house of his estranged wife who was cohabiting with a matatu driver. As the woman and her children were having their supper, the man popped in and announced his intention: "Gladwell, because you have refused to come back, I have come to say goodbye!"

Provincial hospital

Then he swallowed the deadly concoction. The wife could have taken it as another desperate scare from the troubled man had he not started writhing in pain with foam oozing from his mouth. She screamed at the top of her voice and neighbours came to the rescue. Unfortunately, the man died a few metres to the provincial hospital.

And there is this jilted man from Karatina who took his anger too far. Having been left for five years by the wife with whom he had sired two daughters, Dionithio Gakuu stormed his in-law’s compound in the wee hours of the morning and raped his wife, children and mother-in-law at panga point before disappearing never to be seen or heard from again!

In Coast Province, cases abound of jilted men who seek help from witchdoctors.

Money is the only language these witchdoctors understand and by preying on the battered psychology of jilted men, they somehow manage to retain a steady flow of customers.

According to Hemedi Mrisho, a resident of Kilifi town who once sought the help of one of these waganga when his wife ran away, "Certain issues can force one to seek their services such as repairing a strained relationship."

Today he is happy with his wife although he doesn’t like the idea that he had to visit a mganga for her to come back.

Pamela Ogutu, a marriage counsellor in Nakuru says, "The strange behaviour of jilted men confirms the basic truth that males are generally incapable of any fundamental psychological and emotional change in their lives unlike women."