When the past comes calling...

You think you have so deeply buried your past then come your friends with diggers and shovels.  -Pidgin Proverb

I always wanted to go to school and get an education. It was a dream that remained a dream, till I decided to act. My mother was a seller. No, not a trader or a business woman, a seller. She started by selling pap, already made. She would hawk it in the mornings from street to street. I could never believe that people would buy that stuff, but they did. She would return after about three hours with only a little more than she expended. I knew life was meant to be more than that, I just knew it. I was just five years old.

My father was a farmer of some sorts. He had a small farm on which he planted corn, cassava and beans year in year out. The yield was not even enough for the family to survive on. Needless to say, we were poor and uninspired.

None of my parents bothered about putting me in school. I know that I asked a number of times and their responses were identical. “Where is the money?” I was being raised as an illiterate, to continue in the poverty and penury and lack of inspiration of my parents. I hated it.

I made friends with kids that went to school. I would ask them to teach me what they knew. I was like a joke to them. They would laugh at me all day but I learnt what little they knew. The songs they sang in school, alphabets, numbers, even two-letter word formations.

My mother was always either pregnant or breastfeeding. She breastfed her kids for two years, or till she discovered she was pregnant. By the time I was eight, I had four siblings. I went and got myself a job. I would sweep and do dishes and necessarily be a servant for one of our wealthiest neighbours and she would toss change at me. Depending on her mood, sometimes, the change was a good amount. She was the one who gave me money to get enrolled in school.

My mother complained. She said I was learning strange things. She had five children and was pregnant with the sixth. She needed me, I knew she did, but I also needed me. I went and put myself in Primary One. I was called ‘old mama class one’. I bore it, for such was my lot in life but I decided that it was not to be long.

I did well in that public school I was enrolled in, teachers called me 'a breath of fresh air', and the name calling to a large extent reduced. I flew through the classes. My love and hunger for a better tomorrow than my parents overcoming.

I graduated and went to a Government Secondary School. I had to take a number of jobs after school. I was a waiter/cook at a restaurant. I would cook some meals and still serve customers. I made enough money to pay my fees and support my family. Mother prayed for me and the increased cashflow encouraged Father to take up locally brewed gin. The family became even more chaotic.

I got set back financially in my final year in Secondary School. Father fell seriously sick, it was a jumble of diagnosis. I let go of whatever meagre savings I had. He fortunately got better. I was proud of myself. Father quit alcohol after that and mother started to look at me as superhuman.

I didn’t have money to pay for my examinations, JAMB, NECO and WAEC! It was no use telling my parents or asking them for help, they didn’t even know what those were. I cracked my brain. Then I met Hamdo.

Hamdo was from a wealthy family, he was good looking and worldly wise. He promised to give me even more than I needed but at a price. I agreed. On the day I went to collect the money, he forced himself on me and roughly took away my virginity. I wept uncontrollably. I really wanted to wait till my wedding night. He apologised profusely and even asked me to marry him. I left with enough money to pay for WAEC and JAMB not NECO. I decided that I had only one shot and had to make it count. Hamdo and I became a couple.

I did well in my final examinations, got a score of 239 in JAMB and made Four Distinctions and Five Credits in WAEC. My family was proud of me but I doubted that they knew the implication. I got admitted to Ahmadu Bello University Zaria to study Law.

I had no way to afford the journey to Zaria, let alone the fees. It was then the deplorable state of my family hit me. I tried but I couldn’t put it behind me. Hamdo could not raise enough money for me to go to school. He suggested that I go to school the next year while we tried to raise the funds needed. My hunger for a future with a meaning would not let me.

I gave in to the pressure and had an affair with an Igbo Chief that owned a chain of shops, he was quite generous, with his help I had raised enough money to get to school and at least start my registration.

Hamdo was suspicious of my sudden ability to go to school. I even felt he was jealous of my success.  He did not even bid me farewell on the day of my journey. I put my past behind me and left that beautiful morning. The sun came out in all her glory to wish me a good life. My parents proudly bade me farewell as did my seven younger ones. I had taken my mother to the Matron at the General Hospital without my father's knowledge for birth control.

I had to make up the rest of my school fees. I realised that it was easy to raise money in school, cliques upon cliques of ‘big girls’ on campus who lived large and made quality cash on campus. I got drafted in.

Thus I survived on campus. I met men from all walks of life. I was sought after because I was intelligent. They even said I was beautiful, but men would say anything to get a girl in bed. I soon moved off campus, to a flat I shared with two other girls that were never in school. I was practically living alone in the apartment which was good for business.

My grades were good in school as was my finances. I was one of those few girls that really lived large in school. I even sent chunks of money to my parents. I bought Father a motorcycle and gave Mother enough money to start a proper business. I ensured that I sent money for the school for my seven siblings every term.

I studied as hard as I worked. I worked most nights and studied the whole day.  In no time, I got some really high end clients and I didn’t have to work as frequently. School was a breeze, mostly. I didn’t have to sleep with lecturers to pass my exams, I just had to read.

I got a job after Law School in one of the leading Law Firms in the country. I found God and straightened my ways. I became the strict career woman. No more sleeping around. I still sent money to my parents and my younger ones even came to visit me during holidays.

I fell in love with my boss’ friend and we had a great relationship. We got married in a lavish outdoor wedding. It was a-dream-come true. I got pregnant two months after and gave birth to a most beautiful son. It was like God saw my pain and struggle and decided to console me.

But my new found peace was short lived. I ran into Hamdo one day and he was full of tales of woe. His father’s business had run down and JAMB refused to give him admission to the University. I told him where I worked and my new status, I saw as his eyed grew wide in greed. He asked me for some money and I gave him.

He started to blackmail me. What my life had turned to was too precious to let fall to the wind so I doled out wad after wad of cash to satisfy him. Alas, I only got in deeper. I paid and paid to keep my past a secret. Things got to a whole new level when my husband decided to go into politics. Hamdo demanded N 25 million and I called his bluff. It was the greatest mistake and a most enlightening one.

Hamdo had pictures upon pictures of me in compromised positions and situations. I flinched when I saw some of those pictures. He even had videos. He had list after list of girls on call. I knew there was no denying it. I was in it, I was in it deep.

I decided to end it all. I thought about my family and my colleagues, I couldn’t face them finding out scandalously what my craziest secrets were. I knew that Hamdo and his allies were going to play as dirty as possible. I decided to take poison and end the misery.

My husband was in a meeting one evening and I had left my son with one of my colleagues. I sat down and did a lot of mental calculation. My dad, mum and seven siblings depended on me for survival. I had promised my younger sister that I would be there for her and life would never be as hard for her as it was for me.  I knew my father would not live long if he heard of my suicide.

I thought of my husband, who felt the sun and moon rose in my eyes,he, who loved me unwaveringly, and I thought of my son, living, growing up without a mother, tossed to one step mom or the other, paying the price for my cowardice.

I made up my mind. I looked up and saw my husband staring at me.

“I thought you were in a meeting.” I said.

“I was. I forgot something.” He said, nervously. “I’ll just cancel.”

“We need to talk.” I said and watched his shoulders slump. He sat down opposite me on the table.

“Let’s get it over with.” He said, morose.

“I used to be a prostitute back in the day. It was a calculated decision I made to get me through School. My parents could not even afford to send me to Primary School, it was hopeless.” I blurted out. “I have however made a U turn, I will never go to that dark place ever again.”

“Is that all?” He asked. I could see the relief wash over him. “I thought you were going to leave me. I thought you didn’t love me anymore.”

I looked at him with concern. He probably did not hear what I said. I could not understand his response.

            “Everyone has a past,” he continued. “I found out about yours before we got married. I love the woman that you have become and I do not judge you for your past.”

            “I’m being blackmailed. They will come after you now.” I added quickly. I did not add that I had become broke, trying to hide my story that was an open secret.

            “We may have a problem there.” He replied, pensive.

Then I had a brainwave. “I have a way, but I have a way.”

We invited all our friends. The last piece of investment I had, two blocks of 12 room apartments, which I was to sell to pay off Hamdo and his allies, I had decorated and ribboned up.

After all the ceremony, I got up the podium. “I used to be a call girl, no, I used to be a prostitute. I did it to pay my way through the University. If you ask me, if the hands of time are reversed, would I still go down the same path, I’ll respond, I do not know. Today I have these rooms furnished, to reform prostitutes. You can live a life of dignity, you can pursue your dreams and be the best you can be without selling yourself, without selling your pride and your conscience.” The crowd clapped and cheered. “I worked hard to have a new life and you can too.”

Pressmen were hungrily clicking away on their cameras. Everyone wanted to have a piece of me.

The election? My husband won it. They credited his victory to his wife who was bold and courageous enough to inspire change. They do not know that I acted out of desperation. I have my life back and I will henceforth make the right choices, only the right choices.

Credits; Abu Sapphire Ojonugwa