She told them no the first time
She wasn't brought up that way
They didn't believe
They didn't care
How can someone so pretty, so naturally endowed
be pure and naive.
They refused to listen
They manipulated here
Threatened her
Finally, they forced her to do it with them
It was the first time she would join them
It was her last
It didn't start that day
It began a long time ago
21 years ago in a small room that housed six children.
21 years ago in a small room that housed six children.
Growing up she had little or nothing to eat, her father never bothered about them. He drank, smoked and slept with all the street hawkers he could entice with the meager change he got from his salary as a security man for the pure water factory close to the house.
The same warehouse her mother sold groundnut and biscuit to feed a family of six, she is the eldest with four younger sisters and a baby brother.
Her father only cared for their baby brother.
He is a man and the only heir.
Heir to what?
Heir to poverty
But the father didn't care
He had five girls, but he didn't care
He had five girls, but he felt incomplete
So he tried again and had a boy
Now he was a man
Because he had a male child.
She hawked with the sisters.
The father ate from the money that was made from their sweats, pain, long hours under the scorching sun and hunger just so he and the baby brother could eat.
Yet, they were nothing. Just women to be married and sold off as soon as they started seeing their monthly visitor.
So finally, her mother's church group and meeting partners decided Uchechi must go to school.
They rallied round and contributed money to get her a jamb form.
She passed with flying colors.
Finally, Uchechi will go to school.
But what they didn't know was that the night she passed jamb was the day her father knew they spent money to buy her a jamb form and so beat the mother till she fainted.
He was angry they wasted money he would have used to drink and smoke on a girl child.
A mere woman!
So he beat her mother up so much, she lost an eye.
But by Morning, she told the neighbors and friends that she was attacked by robbers.
Now Uchechi is in 200 level, she has exhausted every option, lifeline, uncle, aunties, and church members.
Nobody to beg from again.
She has to eat, pay her school fees, buy clothes, pay transport fare to school, textbooks, projects, etc...
The bills were Insurmountable and never seemed to have an end.
She had no money, no job to fetch her money and her roommates weren't having it again.
So they forced her
Warned her
Coerced her
Insulted her
Warned her
Coerced her
Insulted her
She told them no the first time
She wasn't brought up that way
They didn't believe
They didn't care
How can someone so pretty, so naturally endowed be pure and naive.
They refused to listen
They manipulated here
Threatened her
Finally, they forced her to do it with them.
It was the first time she would join them.
It was her last.
She was introduced to Busola by one of her roommates.
Emem was the richest and most powerful girl in the hostel. She had so much money to rent an apartment but chose to stay in the hostel for reasons known only to her.
She had the best clothes, shoes, and bags.
Every day, different cars picked her in the morning and by midnight different ones dropped her.
So she came with Busola and introduced Uchechi to him.
He had cars, power bikes, kept dreadlocks and a house of his own.
He was 24 and in 200 level too.
So he took her smiling in his car to a fancy Chinese restaurant.
She told him about her problems. He smiled and gave her a bundle of N1000 notes totaling 50, and promised more if she followed him home the next day.
She told her friends and they packaged her like a trophy the next day for Busola.
She followed him home.
He took her in and took her Innocence by force amidst her tears and pleas.
He took her against her will that night.
Who will believe her, after all, she followed him home.
She thought he was like her, Innocent and kind.
She thought he was different like her, she had never known any man not to talk of any man like him.
She thought it would be a conversation or by consent.
She taught she had found a friend, a rich friend and an angel who would save her and her family.
So she trusted his smiles and was blinded by hunger and lack.
She was wrong. He took her innocence and something else that night.
By Morning a Ranger Rover stopped in front of the busy Ikorodu street in Lagos, and a beautiful fair skinned well endowed female student dropped.
Seconds later she ran mad.
How they laughed, danced around her and called her names.
Asewo, slay Queen. Dem don use this one again.. these girls no dey hear word..na their fault them deserve am. Asewo useless thing dem don use her destiny. Shameless girls. Hahahahaha.
Mothers laughed
Fathers laughed
Sons laughed
Even daughters like her laughed the most.
Fathers laughed
Sons laughed
Even daughters like her laughed the most.
That morning Uchechi ran mad and became a statistics too.
A symbol, another girl used and destroyed by desperate and lazy ritualists.
Uchechi became a number
A warning
A shame!
Busola drove away in the busy Lagos road with no one concerned enough to take down his plate number or remember the type of car.
No one cared about the ritualist, they were too busy videoing and recording the victim to post on Facebook and Instagram.
Busola drove away free and undisturbed.
Uchechi will never be seen again, neither will her pant, resting beneath the soil of a shrine in one isolated and hidden shrine deep inside the Forest.
Kingdavid Chinaeke Ofunne
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