Thread by @Pretty_dymphna, A THREADSHE WAS NOT A PROSTITUTESo many contorted stories have been told [...]

A THREAD

SHE WAS NOT A PROSTITUTE

So many contorted stories have been told about the girl with a baby tied to her back, so many of the stories spuriously skewed towards prostitution. Rumours are rife that she even started prostituting at the age of twelve...
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All these have made silence impossible, because she was, in fact, not a prostitute. Now, let me tell you the whole truth. But before then, have you ever felt a connection with someone? Not in their image or in lust which is characteristic of modern day love affairs,
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but in the richness of their souls and the vibes which they give? That was exactly what it was.
The girl in the picture with a baby tied to her back? Her name was Cecilia. I'm going to, with utmost carefulness, trace the sequence of events from her salad days up until when she...

had the baby, and maybe more.
Cecilia Ogbuefi was born at Asaba, today Delta State of Nigeria, in 1965, five years after Nigeria's Independence. In October 7, 1967, her parents, along with over one thousand others, were killed by the Nigerian soldiers...
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in the popular Asaba massacre led by Murtala Muhammed, during the Nigerian civil war. Cecilia was only two, then. She managed to survive in Asaba until 1970 when the war ended. Then, her aunt who lived in Lagos came for her. There, in Lagos, a year later,
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she started primary school, and six years after, she continued in a secondary school.
What Cecilia enjoyed most in her early days was not watching over prostitutes fighting over men, or drunks urinating and vomiting in the open drains; no! What she loved most was going to...
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church to pray and listen to sermons. Every Sunday her aunt would take her to the morning mass at the St Gabriel Catholic Church where Cecilia was also a chorister...
Her first few years in the secondary school were happy years. Cecilia had no thoughts or worries...
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than sheer love of learning and her ambition to complete school with high honour, proceed to the university and become a mechanical engineer, as she had always dreamed. As a secondary school student, she was a good girl who never lingered unnecessarily.
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She knew only two stops: school and home. Studying day and night, going to church every Sunday, helping her aunt do a few things at home — that was Cecilia's routine from Monday to Sunday. Her integrity and diligence in everything she did helped spread her golden reputation.
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That, then, was how Cecilia grew up in Lagos — upright, always seeking the path of virtue, according to the light of her knowledge and experience, until she reached Form Three (today SS3), and that was when everything changed.
By that time her breast had developed.
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Her hair had grown long and brilliantly black. Her cheeks had blossomed, smooth and luscious like fruits in a good season. It was at that time her aunt's husband whom she called "uncle" introduced her to his friend, a rich lecturer at the University of Lagos.
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One day Cecilia was invited by a schoolmate to a party in one of the finest hostels there. She found her uncle there. The rich lecturer was also present. That night Cecilia was driven home by the rich lecturer in his Mercedes Benz.
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Gradually Cecilia and the rich lecturer got to know one another. The man was indefatigable in his relentless pursuit of her. He started driving to Cecilia's school once it was time, to pick her home. Soon he started giving her pocket money,
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money for cinema, for clothes and other things. Cecilia started liking it. Her incipient experience stirred her imagination and opened a new world for her, a world that shone so brightly. She had never seen it that bright.
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She soon grew wings. She tried out the wings and flew once with the lecturer. She felt good. She flew again and again, and with every flight she felt the wonders of Mercedes Benz multiply... The lecturer encouraged her with soothing words: he said that she should...
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never worry, that he was perfectly willing to divorce his wife on account of Cecilia's thighs and breasts. Cecilia was happy! Cecilia totally forgot about school. It gradually became stressful and useless.
Gradually they started visiting hostels and lodging together.
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And they started doing things, soft things. She started having the lecturer's thing inside her. And they both felt good.
One day Cecilia, on her way to school, felt dizzy. She sat down and started vomiting. Panic seized her. She soon confirmed she was pregnant.
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What's done cannot be undone, she told herself in consolation. In any case, the ground on which she stood was firm and solid. Her rich lecturer had always promised her marriage, even divorcing his own wife. She joyously ran to the man and broke the news to him.
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The man, surprisingly, received it with anger and called Cecilia a foolish girl. How could she have been so naive and not know when she was in her period. Anyway, he wasn't responsible. Cecilia must go and look for whoever was responsible...
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Cecilia did not know whether to weep or scream or protest. She remained silent, like someone who had been struck dumb or bewitched into preserving eternal silence by a powerful juju. Before her very eyes, she saw the world suddenly turn hostile, gloomy and dark. So suddenly.

She didn't see the thorns laying behind the facade of the free enjoyment the man provided. She learnt her lesson... And now as a woman, she's telling other girls...
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"Be careful when free things become excessive. E get why."
...with support from Ngugi's DEVIL ON THE CROSS.
Fiction
Ajah Chukwudi, 2020
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