News Star newspaper

Getting Personal
KAYODE AJALA

Tigress on the prowl! (1)

I feel so sad because I don’t know who to blame for my present condition. I want to blame the bastard that did this to me. But then, a lot of things led to my meeting him in the first place. If dad and mum had not brought us- their children- into the world, in the first place, when they knew that they had no money to bring us up, I wouldn’t be in this mess. But be that as it may, I have come to terms with my present situation. I have a life to live, no matter what.
I will graduate as a metalurgical engineer, find a job and make money. I don’t think that I have the nerve to go through marriage, knowing as I do that I’m a barren wastrel without a womb. So, I will just get a grip on life, resist all the pressures and live my life without a husband. But it will not end like that. Before I die and I don’t plan to die very soon, I will deal with men. I will take them, crush them and scatter them to the winds. The word mercy does not exist in my dictionary for now. Someone tried to preach to me lately. She went on and on, preaching about forgiveness and leaving vengeance in the hands of God. Arrant nonsense! Where was God when I was going through hell? Where was God when my situation in life pushed me into the hands of the man who did this to me? Okay, they say everything serves God, not so? Now, how does my present situation serve God? You don’t know what I mean? Then, let me tell you my story...
I was born Obianiju Angela Onyiuke. My parents were from Onitsha. I attended Ado Girls Secondary School, Onitsha, where I was the best graduating student in my set at the age of 17. I was a science student and I had nine alphas in all my subjects, including Further Mathematics. But then, there was a problem. Dad and mum were both secondary school teachers and there were nine of us, children, to cater for. I was the fifth child and the second out of the four girls. Four of my siblings were already in the university. When I wrote JAMB, I could tell that my parents were scared. They knew that I was going to excel in the examination and there was no money to pay my school fees.
But then, did that mean I should not write the examinations and go to school? For heavens sake, if I were a boy, the story would be different. I would simply go into the market and become an apprentice. After a few years, I would own my own shop and start business. That was to be the fate of my younger brothers whom my parents had already told that they were not going into higher institutions. But as a feminine child, I had to attend a higher institution so that I would be quite eligible for marriage in future.
Anyway, I wrote the JAMB examinations and scored very high grades. I was admitted for Metalurgical Engineering at the Enugu State University of Science and Technology (E.S.U.T.). Then, the problems of life started in earnest. There was no money for me to pay the registration and tuition fees, not to talk of paying for accommodation, which in Enugu, was quite expensive for a student. I stayed at home for seven months after the JAMB results were released. All my mates, none of whom could rub shoulders with me academically registered into higher institutions and were off to school. Many of them who went into the same institution to which I was admitted, came back to tell me that examinations for first year students would soon begin and when that happens, it would be too late for me to register as a student. I would therefore lose my admission and would have to wait till the following year.
I was miserable. I cried all day and night and lost the appetite for food. Eventually, it was my aunt, mum’s younger sister, who was a nurse and lived with her husband in the United States of America, who came to my rescue. After I’d sent her several mails, she sent me five hundred dollars through the Western Union Money Transfer. That was how I was able to register just two weeks before the commencement of examinations.
The examinations did not pose a problem to me in spite of everything. I worked very hard and still managed to score good grades. And this earned me the respect of my course mates, most of whom were guys. There were only two female students in my class. Throughout that first semester, I squatted with my secondary school mate, Njideka. Her dad was a wealthy building contractor and although she was a Mass Communication student, she had a whole apartment to herself in an exclusive neighbourhood of Enugu called New Haven. She allowed me to stay with her on the understanding that I would only spend the two weeks examination period which was all that was left of the semester.
In the second semester, I was expected to either find accommodation of my own or pay half of the rent, so that we could share the apartment. I went for the holidays with a lot of worries. I knew that the second semester would be quite tough. When I was returning to school for the second semester, all that dad could give me was five thousand naira. And when I complained, he asked what I’d done with the five hundred dollars that my aunt sent to me. I explained to him and dad told me not to worry. He promised to send money to me in school. I would have been a fool if I didn’t know better...
(To be continued next week)