To God who made me, this is the work of ekwensu.
On a normal day, I am not even a quarrelsome person. I am easy going, I avoid trouble when I see it from a distance but the thing that happened to me recently can only be attributed to ekwensu, the devil itself.
Why would I lift my hand to do harm to the person I love? Does that even make sense to you? Do you think this is normal? It isn’t. Anyone who hears this and knows me well will tell you I can never hurt a fly.
So, how did I get into this trouble that only God can bail me out of?
I have been ‘friending’ Nonso for some time; he was a nice person to me and me, too, I have been nice to him too. When we started, he told me he would marry me. He said that when he has small money he would call his people to go and know my people. If a man you are ‘friending’ who wants to marry you, will you do the person bad?
There was one time I borrowed him money, up to N80,000. He promised to return the money because he said he wanted to use it to add to his market. He did not return the money; at another time, he borrowed N25,000 to use to take his mother to the hospital when the woman was sick…even that one, I could not ask because, I knew he didn’t have the money; so I endured with him. It is not as if I have plenty money myself but I work at a restaurant and I get a lot of tips from my regular customers. If you treat people well, they will give you something. So, I know how to handle customers, man o, woman, o. I know how to handle them, they would give me something and if I join that with my salary, I always have good money. Because I also live with my aunty, I don’t have to worry about rent or anything and restaurant now, they will feed us. It is part of the job, they give us free food so I don’t spend money on food. In fact sometimes I even pack food home to my aunty and Nonso.
I did so many things for him; after all, he was my man. I did it because I loved him. I would go to his house to cook with my money, I would wash his clothes, I would even carry food to go give his mother if she calls to say she doesn’t have food in her house.
I did all of these because he was a man I wanted to marry. And many times, many, many times, we have sex. That too is not something, I would not just do like that, I am not the type of girl to be ‘uselessing’ herself with any man; so that is how we have been enjoying ourselves.
That day, I was in my place when I remembered that I had forgotten some things at his place and because it was Sunday, there no work. I was supposed to stay at home because my aunty was doing her meeting, and I was the one who did her cooking. You know those meetings when it is your turn, you host your friends and then they eat afterwards.
Remember, I said this is the work of the devil, ehen.
So, that day, after cooking, my aunty said they have cancelled their meeting because one person died and they have to go and visit the person’s family. See me o that woke up early and began to cook, then after cooking they now said meeting will not hold?
So when my aunty went out, I just decided to go and see my man; that’s how I went o.
When I got to the house, I saw that the door was locked, I wanted to use my key but there was a key in the lock, so my key did not enter because Nonso had used his key to lock the door from the inside, so I knocked on the door.
Who he opened the door for me, Nonso was tying wrapper! I didn’t even think anything, I thought he was just at home sleeping Sunday sleep. He was standing there just looking at me one kind as I entered the house. I just walked straight to bedroom, thinking me too, I will get some sleep but what did I see; a girl in his bed!
I swear! And I know the girl. She lives upstairs with her parents; one small girl like that!
Father!
My heart was just beating, gbum, gbum, gbum!
I said, ‘Henh, Father Lord in heaven help your children! So, Nonso can have the heart to bring another girl into that house, the bed that me I thought I was the only girl that sleeps there with him. And apart from that, he has been sleeping with this small girl, a girl that just finished secondary school, that calls him ‘uncle Nonso.’
I was so disappointed in him; he is sleeping with small girls and spoiling her life and this is supposed to be the person I will marry!
See, my heart was beating so hard, I did not know when I turned and jacked Nonso and said, ‘So this is how you will treat me, ehn? After all I have done for you, this is how you will treat me; shameful idiot, you are sleeping with a girl that is too young to even know what she is doing.
That’s how fight started and we began to struggle. He was just beating me. He slapped me and kicked me! Then I fought him back and up till today, I didn’t know when I picked up a fork and used it to ‘chook’ him in the stomach.
It wasn’t as if I knew the fork was there. I was just looking for something to help me fight him so that he would stop hitting me…but the fork was more powerful than I thought.
When I chooked him. Nonso stopped as if electricity shocked him. Then he looked at the fork in his stomach and tried to remove it. My sister, see blood. There was so much blood, that even me, I was immediately scared. Chai, this is the work of ekwensu, ooo.
Nonso fell and and that is how he died o.
It was the small girl that went to call people and the people went to call police and that is how they arrested me that I have killed a human being.
(Series written and edited by Peju Akande and based on true stories)