A Dangerous Expedition of the Heart –

When we started out, our relationship was a secret. Gradually, over time, people began to figure out that we were an item. At the time, I was in Adeleke University in Ede. My mom was responsible for my school fees, the whole school fees was N350, 000 per semester which was a lot , but we were allowed to pay in instalment. Whenever I was on holiday, rather than go to Lagos, I’d spend the holiday at the Shepherd’s house in Ibadan just so that we could have time to see each other in Ibadan.

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One day, during one of the holidays in Ibadan, I became really ill. The nurse who checked me out suspected that it was appendicitis and advised that I went home immediately so that I could be with my parents and get proper attention. Bolu took me to Lagos and that was how my family members got to know him.

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The very night we got to Lagos, I was operated upon and he stayed with me all through. At the time, I was yet to complete payment of my outstanding Year 2 fees. The money my mother had scrapped together to pay off my 200-level debt was what she used to pay for the surgery.

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After my surgery, there was a disruption with my menstrual flow – I didn’t see my period anymore. When I complained at the hospital, the doctors assured me that it was not a cause for alarm given the kind of surgery I had undergone. They assured me that so long as I didn’t have sex, I didn’t have anything to worry about, regarding my menstruation and that in due time, things would return to normalcy.

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When I returned to school after my surgery, second semester exams were done and dusted. For me to be able to resume 300 level, the school management insisted that I had to complete the payment of 200level school fees and also pay a part of the 300 level school fees all at once. That became a serious problem and so in the end, the only option on the table was for me to abandon the program.

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People admonished me to start again, write JAMB and all that but I had no interest whatsoever. I was tired of trying again and so I decided never to go back to school again and I was resolute about it. Bolu wanted me to go back to school and he because he supported me, I was willing to go through that process. He would see me off to my JAMB classes and stay till I was done.

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On the day I was to write my UTME, he followed me to my center. I passed the exam and I got admitted into the Polytechnic of Ibadan, Eruwa campus. When I went for my registration, he went with me – we literally went everywhere together. He was running his ND program at Crown Polytechnic, Ado Ekiti at the time and still, he made his presence available to see me through my enrolment and registration at Eruwa.

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Anytime I was coming to Ibadan for a holiday or the weekend, he would leave Ado Ekiti to join me in Eruwa then we’d both journey down to Ibadan together. If I told him I wanted to go to Lagos, he would accompany me to Lagos. That was how deeply into each other we were. By this time, no-one could say he would be unfaithful to me given all that he had done for me.

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I’d once teased him with sex, just to see how deep his convictions were about not having sex. That day, he got up and said “eni to ma koba lo n wa” and he walked away. That further made me feel relaxed in the relationship – a lovely, caring man who respected my body and my choices. He had a room to himself and if the need arose for me to stay over at theirs while visiting, I always slept in his room.

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At that time, we had been dating for 3 years. In those 3 years, his siblings already knew me, and so did his parents. I was no longer treated like a stranger in his house – they always welcomed me with open arms. Even though we had begun the relationship lowkey, it had become apparent to everyone who knew us that we were an item.

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Though Bolu and his siblings were Christians, his father was Muslim. Anytime there was an Islamic festivity, all the children would come home and give support to their dad. I had a Muslim background too and so, in that sense we were both similar. The Ileya celebration of 2014 was on the 15th of October and my boyfriend invited me to come spend the festive season at his parents’. I agreed.

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In the midnight of the Ileya festival. We were in his room sleeping when I a hand tapped me. I turned around and it was Bolu. I cleared my eyes and asked him why he had woken me up. ‘I want us to have sex,’ he said. I burst into laughter because that was the last thing I had expected to hear him say.

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From the start of the relationship, I had clearly informed him that I was a virgin and that I was not ready to give up my virginity till we got married. In a bid to be understanding, I told him that if, at any time in the relationship, he was hard on and was craving sex, he could go have sex with some other woman.

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Giving him that option wasn’t an easy decision for me but I had felt it would be unfair to put the burden of my own personal choice on him. I was aware that he had taken up my option and had been helping himself whenever he couldn’t hold it together; that was why when he said he wanted us to have sex, I wondered why.

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I told him I wasn’t ready to have sex and that he should ditch the idea already. He asked me whom I was keeping my virginity for if not for him. True, I had been keeping my virginity, believing that he was the one I would marry. We were not yet married but now he had come to demand what I’d been keeping.

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Thoughts began to run through my mind: I was in his house, if I screamed, wouldn’t it be out of place? It wasn’t my first time spending the night at his house and I never caused drama, is it in the midnight of ileya that I would now cause a scene?

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I switched from defiance and began to beg him; I reminded him of how he had been patient for three years and that all the time that was left to finish my program and for us to marry was nothing compared to have long we’d waited. The way he ogled my barely-covered body, I knew he was serious about this and I also knew I was in a bad situation.

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Nothing I said would assuage him – it was like, I was talking to a different version of the guy had known all these years. It was at this point I began to cry. When he began to handle me roughly, I told him to go easy on me and I’d let him satisfy his desire. He spread me open and very painfully deflowered me and had sex with me.

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Immediately he was done, He became very sober. Whatever had taken him over had left him and he was back to himself. When he began to beg me, I clearly told him to stop. I asked him: “Now that he’d done his wish, are you happy? Or will your apology undo what has been done?” He didn’t answer the questions, he just kept on begging me.

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It was in the middle of pouring his apologies that he mentioned that his friends taunted him; that if he did not deflower me and have sex with her, I’d eventually leave and move on with another man and he would just have been wasting his time taking care of another man’s girl.”

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That confession just hurt me more because the implication of what he said was that he did not trust me. That night, my heart was shattered. When we first began to date, a cousin of his had called me aside, asking me to think twice about my relationship with him because of the women all around him. For me, I was already so in love with him and nothing anyone said could stop me from going on with him.

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Through the years, I had never doubted him even when people said things about him or when the optics of circumstances posted him as unfaithful. He belonged to a dance drama group and he could sing so well. He was the choir leader of his parish. These giftings of his drew women to him. Apart from these, he was a prophet. For all of these reasons, many ladies admired him. Whenever he came out of a trance after many days, different ladies would have cooked different meals for him; some would even buy provisions for him.

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In the morning – the Ileya day – everyone was cheerful except me. It didn’t take very long before his family members began to suspect that something was wrong. He called me aside and begged me again. He asked me to cheer up and not give people reasons to pursue their suspicions further. I told him how I was going through so much pain in my lower abdomen and that he should let me be. For the next few days, I was in severe pains. If I wanted to urinate, I would be in intense pain.

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A month after we had sex, I finally saw my period but the flow was not much to reckon with. I reported at the hospital and the doctors assured me that everything was still alright, that I couldn’t expect a full flow of blood after a drought of about eight months. The next month, I menstruated but the flow was also little.

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One time, he told me he received a message in a trance regarding me that if I should get pregnant, I should not dare to abort it. We hadn’t had sex since the only time we did; and now my menstrual cycle was back, I figured the message was a warning to not engage in sex again in order to avert any pregnancy.

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The third month after Ileya, I was visiting him at their home when I took ill. It was so severe; I couldn’t get out of bed myself. His parents suggested it was best for me to stay at their place rather than go back to school to be on my own. Because I couldn’t walk or even get out of bed, he would carry me into the bathroom, bathe me and carry back into bed; and wherever he put me was where I’d be all day. That was how bad it was.

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They got a nurse to come over and take a look at me and treat me. After a couple of treatment with no improvement, the nurse got sceptical and began to suggest that maybe I should take a pregnancy test. It didn’t add up because I had seen my menstruation for three months back-to-back – the chances of being pregnant was zero. The nurse maintained that we did a pregnancy test so we agreed. I did the test with urine on a strip and it returned a double strip.

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With a tone of triumph, the nurse announced – “I said it, she is pregnant!” My guy looked at her as if to say ‘you must be out of your mind’. She asked us to do a blood test and it returned as positive. Instantly, he snatched the result and ripped it into pieces, then turned to me and asked: ‘How come you’re pregnant? Who did you sleep with that impregnated you?’ He accused me that I had capitalized on the opportunity that he deflowered me to sleep around with other guys.

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I burst into tears and began to explain to him that it wasn’t so. I told him he was the only person I had slept with but he wouldn’t accept my explanation. The nurse tried to explain to him that it was possible for a first encounter to result in pregnancy but he was headstrong and wouldn’t listen. The nurse advised that we could lay the matter to rest by doing a scan since he was insisting that he could not be responsible for the pregnancy. A scan would determine the term of the pregnancy so far.

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We went to the ultrasound station together; did the scan and it revealed that the pregnancy had been on for three months and two weeks. Bolu did not like it at all. He blamed me for being the sole cause of the turn of events. Later, he calmed down and asked me what we should do next. I told him I didn’t know and I put the question back to him.

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He suggested we craftily find a way to remove the pregnancy without putting me at risk. I reminded him of the message from his trance which he delivered to me by himself and so I put my feet down that I couldn’t go against the message. I also reminded him of how I had begged him that night when he forced his way with me and how I had always avoided having sex with him from the start of our relationship.

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Then, his reply changed. He said: ‘keeping the child is not the problem – telling my mom about this is the problem.’ I replied him, ‘Are you too young to impregnate someone or did your mom not see us every time I came to your house and spent many nights in your room?’ He said nothing, he was just fidgety. It was then that, for the first time in three years, I realized he was a Mummy’s boy. Apparently, there had been signs that he was a Mummy’s boy but I never paid attention.

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Here’s why:

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Before the whole pregnancy thing ever happened, he used to have a printing business but things had nosedived and he wasn’t doing well at all. I later got a job as a sales representative in a tomato puree company. However, I figured that it would be better if the job went to him because as a man, it would be good for his morale if he had a job that would always put some cash in his pocket.

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I asked if I could bring in someone else to take over the position I had been offered and the company agreed. That was how he got the job. His salary was supposed to be N25,000, he was also to be getting food allowance and transport allowance. With commissions from sales, he should earn up to N40,000.

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His work was pretty easy, he would only go out to effect supplies on a need-to-go basis as requested by the customers in the zone apportioned to him and then every Thursday he was supposed to go to the main office and turn in his report and remit the money from sales in the previous seven days. That was all. Since it was I who linked him with the opportunity I didn’t want to poke my nose into his earnings.

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I had rented an apartment for myself in Ibadan and my landlady was a very kind woman who really liked me; and once she knew he was my intended, she took a liking to him too. It did not take very long that Bolu moved in with me. However, when he started working and he wasn’t contributing anything to the running of the house. I paid rent, I bought the food, I paid electricity, I did everything, he contributed nothing! Then he brought another friend to come live in with us. Even though I wasn’t comfortable with it, I didn’t throw him out. Whenever we were out of foodstuff or I needed money, I’d pressure my mom to send money. He was pretty much living off me. He was working while keeping the house running on the pocket money my mom sent to me.

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After his third month on the job, I couldn’t take it anymore and so I asked him what happened to his salaries; it was then he told me that he had been giving all his income to his mom. He told long touching stories about how his mother had not been treated well by his dad and how he needed to support her. In the end, I let it go. .

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This was the earliest sign that he was Mommy’s boy but because I was so deeply in love, my emotions blinded me and I never paid attention.

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I was shocked hearing all that the woman had said. All I could do was apologize and I promise to step into the matter. Later in the day, when I accosted him with the information I had freshly obtained, he began to tell stories of how his mother would call him and lament not having money and so he would go give her the money. In the end, I called the HR woman, explained to her and begged her to help us draw out a payment plan by which we could pay back the sum he owed.

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The woman suggested that I write a letter asking that the money owed be deducted from his salary and whatever was left be handed over to him. I did. This was the state of things between us right before the Ileya celebration of 2014. Ileya went with all its drama and we returned to the palaver we’d left behind. The company calculated the worth of goods he didn’t remit and deducted it from what his salary should have been. The remaining balance of N20,000 was handed to him. Instead of bringing the money home so as to form part of the N30,000 we were supposed to raise to repay the microfinance bank, he went into the nearest market, bought foodstuff and sent them home to his mother.

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Seeing his disposition to cash and how he had messed up different opportunities, I decide to not run helter-skelter for him anymore. I took care of myself and my needs alone. I would cook my own meals. Whenever he complained of hunger, I’d advise him to go home to his mom and eat. By the time the N30,000 was due for repayment, I didn’t have anything; because it was taken in my mother’s name, the debt hung around her neck. It became a big problem that left my mother running up and down, turning to people for help. That was how she was finally able to pay the money.

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At this point, the ra.pe had happened but I’d not discovered that I was pregnant yet. When it was confirmed that I was pregnant and the scan showed that conception happened right exactly at the time we’d slept together, he changed his story. He was no longer feisty and dramatic. This time, he was mellow and he began to lament that he did not know how to break the news to his mom. I was so incensed. Once it was confirmed that I was with child, I returned to my own apartment, he did too.

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For another two weeks, we dragged the matter of whether to tell his mother or not. In the end, he agreed to tell his mom and, by then, the pregnancy was already four months old. At that point, he agreed to tell his mother. He went to their house, returned and told me his mother asked me to come see her. When I got there, she began to lambast me. Just like her son, she asked me how I got pregnant, why I didn’t take contraceptives after we had sex etc. I returned to my place and told him everything that had happened. He apologized to me for how his mother treated me.

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In the fifth month of my pregnancy, his mother called him and requested that he came to see her at home. He went and didn’t return that day, then the next, and then the next. He never came back to my place after that day. I discussed with my landlady about what had happened. She told me that his disappearance from my place was his family’s way of making him avoid taking responsibility for the pregnancy. She advised that I packed a few things and go to their house, unannounced and that I should leave with the plan of not leaving there too. I did. All this time, I hadn’t told my own people that I was pregnant yet.

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I got to Bolu’s parents’ and he was shocked to see me. He asked me why I didn’t give him a heads up, I said nothing. I just carried my bag into his room and I refused to leave. I began to live there and no one said anything. However, his mother always made sure that whenever Bolu’s father was at home, she always made sure I wasn’t within sight of his father. This suggested to me that the man hadn’t been informed of the developments. Time passed and the pregnancy was 6 months old.

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I informed my landlady what I’d observed. Just like I was, she too was surprised that his father hadn’t been told of the development. She advised that since Easter was approaching, Bolu and I should travel to Lagos for the Easter holiday and then while in Lagos, I should use his phone to text his dad, detailing the current state of things and letting the man know that he wouldn’t return home if he (the dad) didn’t forgive him. The idea was that, that way, it would appear as though he was the one informing his dad.

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I suggested to Bolu that we travel to my mother’s place for the Easter celebration and he agreed. While there I did exactly as my landlady advised me. Bolu was miffed when he found out what I had done. I reminded him that the matter at hand had gone beyond what he could sort out by himself and also, what’s the point of hiding one’s nakedness from the person that would give one a bath? When I gave my landlady the feedback, she told me to be patient and that if I didn’t get any positive sign from his dad, I shouldn’t return with him to Ibadan after Easter. Throughout the time my mom had no idea that I was pregnant at all.

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The Easter holiday ended and I got no word from his dad and so I stayed back in Lagos while he returned to Ibadan. I called him and asked how his father reacted upon his return. He said his father didn’t act as though he got any message – he remained his jovial self. Again, I called my landlady and she told me to return to Ibadan and head back to his house unannounced. I did. Bolu was, again, vexed that I came back unannounced. I said nothing. The father arrived from his place of work in the night and met me in his house.

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He told me to pack my things and leave his house that minute. Very respectfully, I pleaded with the man that I was pregnant and that I had no place to go. He insisted that I leave and the matter escalated so quickly that night, and neighbours got involved. It was then that he spoke up. He said he knew that his wife and son had been hiding me from him since I first moved into their house. He said he was simply playing a waiting game till when someone would officially tell him why I had turned his house to my place of abode.

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Everyone pleaded on our behalf and, in the end, he forgave us. He entered into his room, came out and handed me N15,000 to go register for ante natal at their family hospital. That night, I really understood that the man wasn’t the wicked, insensitive man that his wife had always made him out to be. The man always checked on me – he would return from work and buy things like fruits for me. Whenever I was going for ante natal meetings, he would give me some money to hold; sometimes he would buy airtime for me.

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While I gained an ally in Bolu’s dad, from then onward Bolu’s mother automatically became my sworn enemy.

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