Mustapha is a liar and there will be no aljannah for him!
He claims to be my boyfriend? Aunty, I don’t even have a boyfriend, I have never had one and if I did, I would settle for someone that at least has an education, someone who will encourage me to further my studies, someone who has a good job or even has prospects of a better life.
I am 19 years old, I come from Oyo state but I live with my guardian, Iya Alira, who is my mother’s cousin. I take care of her shop and her three children during the weekends.
How did I meet Mustapha? He repairs boats by the jetty and lives in the same building where my aunty’s shop is located. That’s how we met. I usually come in every morning but on Saturday’s I manage the shop for the whole day.
Saturdays are also days that Mustapha comes to sit on the bench in front of the shop, like many customers, o. But Mustapha will be telling me he wants to marry me.
At first, I just thought he was being playful. He would buy coke and biscuit, sit on the bench and be gisting. He once told me that he would soon be rich and be able to afford money to marry me. I just thought that was nonsense. I mean, did he think money was all it takes to marry a woman? What of love? What of companionship? What of compatibility?
So, you see, I tolerated him because I saw him as a neighbour, nothing more. Several times, when I need to go and pick up a note to copy from my classmate about two streets away, I would call Mustapha to help me watch the shop while I quickly run to and fro.
I didn’t feel he could harm me, I never felt I should be afraid of him. We used to abuse each other playfully and I thought I made it clear that he was just not my type. More so, school is very important to me. I am preparing for my WAEC in a few month’s time.
Now, Mustapha is saying he buys me things and I collect?
I won’t deny that. Yes, he buys biscuits, the ones that come in tin boxes and we would sit down here to eat it together while he told me about life in general. But he never gave me money or bought me clothes or jewelry or anything because, then I would realize his friendship is more than I can accept.
Biscuits, yes, coke and minerals, yes. Even fan ice cream, yes but nothing more than these. Then I decided I didn’t want to talk to him again when his jokes to me were becoming sex jokes. I didn’t like that at all. He said one day that my breasts were like watermelons. I didn’t take kindly to talk like that. He said once he marries me, he would suck it and it would be sweet and fill up his mouth.
That was when I stopped talking to him. Whenever he came around, I would just ignore him and he would try to make another joke.
So, I was in the shop one day when he came from behind me and touched me. He said, ‘I will do what I have been telling you that I will do.’
That was all I remembered before I followed him to his room, like dundee united. Inside his room, he undressed me then he raped me. I felt pain, I wanted to cry out but no sound came. I knew he had used juju to keep me silent.
After that, he told me to get up and leave his room. I obeyed like mumu. But I felt my mind was playing tricks on me. I wasn’t sure again. I was so sick, sick that this retard had either raped me for real or I dreamt about it and I was feeling pain.
I couldn’t get up from the bed on Monday to go to school because I was in pain and started seeing my menses. I was confused, maybe it’s my menses approaching that gave me cramps, but I felt my vagina was painful. This never happens even when I am on. So, it must be true that I had been raped.
My aunty was angry that I didn’t get up on time, she was even saying she would send me back to my parents if I want to start getting lazy. Then I told her, ‘Iya Alira, I think I have been raped by Mustapha.’
That was when I just began to cry. So it is actually true. It is really true Mustapha did this to me.
I know they have arrested him; it was after that that he told my aunty and the police that he would marry me, since he found me a virgin.
Who will marry me now that I am no longer a virgin?
(Series written and edited by Peju Akande and based on true stories)