ABANDONED

I wasn’t born on the 7th neither was I born on the 7th month, but everyone calls me Seven. A nickname I earned not when I was 7 years old but one that came to be with the series of events that surrounded my life and educational path.

My name is Ijeoma, I am an only child and maybe I still am, 10 years old at the time. My mother was a petty trader and my father a soldier. Life for us was just beginning to be tasteful until my father’s unfortunate event which set our lives down on a painful and humilating path.

At a military check point, my father and two other soldiers had extorted and humiliated a motorist. Unknown to them the motorist was a senior military officer; a commandant in another state who was dressed in mufti and visiting an age long friend in Delta State.

My father and the two other soldiers were arrested, arraigned before a military court martial and were eventually discharged from the Army on the grounds of gross misconduct and code of ethics violations. Unlike the other two, he was lucky not to be thrown into jail.

The discharge led to a raid of our two rooms’ apartment by the military, in the ghetto where we lived, taking with them his spare uniform and boot, his camouflage jersey which my mother once wore on his birthday with great pride and every item that had to do with the military or connotes military presence in our apartment.

One last thing I would say they took was our lives as the life we knew changed before our very eyes.

The raid confirmed the people’s suspicion that my father was being martialed and also ruined the little reputation we had left in the ghetto. It took away our respect and pride, it was like a garment of shame put upon us, and to make matters worse, some persons even ridiculed my father with names like ex-official highway robber, government ex-criminal, etcetera; especially when he got into an argument or a quarrel with them.

At this point, every other thing began to fall apart. My education was immediately suspended, my mother lost the zeal to keep trading, my father kind of lost the will to live, and getting a job was not in the picture as he often sat in idleness worrying about his past and wishing he could change it.

Over time, the razor sharp tongues of those trying to ruin our lives further gradually became blunt, but the stigma and human perception worried my father more than any other thing; so one day he prevailed on us to move. We eventually moved to a new location, another ghetto where we tried to start a new life; but nothing really changed as the obstacles were in his mind and not in the location.

Life in the new ghetto was absolutely distasteful; it was a ghetto to the core but being that my parents hands were tied by dwindled savings, no job, the high cost of living and my suspended education, the new ghetto was not debatable. Well, that didn’t stop me from wondering how others were comfortable and happily living in it. Well this only makes the saying true…

”One man’s wilderness is another man’s theme park” Author unknown.

Still unable to get a job and keep up with family’s needs, my already depressed father became frustrated and succumbed to the harsh realities of life as he grabbed his bag and walked out of our lives the very night my mother encouraged him to bury his past and move on.

Tears rolled down my eyes as he walked and that night was the first time I saw my mother cry. She wept bitterly, and as I grew older, I understood better why she was so bitter that night. Life is tough but for a single mother, it is tougher.

Two days later, a woman in the neighborhood advised her to give me up as a maid and receive a monthly token for my services but she refused. The following day she sold virtually all her clothes and some other items in the house to raise money for petty trading.

God being so kind, that same week, we were in business and together we made and sold a local corn food popularly called Akamu (Pap). Selling both the starch (the Akamu) to households, and the Chaff (the waste) to local farm owners who engaged in livestock farming.

In a space of three weeks, we had made some reasonable amount of money and I was back to school in a time where everything was late; as the enrollment had ended and mock examinations written.

The enrollment officer had just voiced out the words to me “enrollment has ended please come back next year” when the proprietress walked in.

“Ijeoma” she called out my name in surprise. “I have been looking for you, I even visited your old neighbourhood and I was told your parents moved house. I am aware of your family’s predicament and how your mother is facing it all alone. I am sorry my child and I will not see it aggravated”.

Turning to the enrollment officer, she instructs “Mr. Obinna, please prepare a supplementary list I will approve and follow it up. You are pretty new so you may not know her but she is Ijeoma, one of the best pupils in her class, an exceptional one. She has represented the school in three different competitions and each time she brought back a medal." Now all smiles and wearing the wow look, Mr. Obinna immediately shook hands with me and bounced back to work.

Great thanks to the proprietress, my enrollment was accepted and three weeks later we wrote the examinations.

With the exams over, I was now fully available to assist my mother in the trade that survived us, and one day at a time we moved on, gradually covering more grounds and gaining more customers.

Eight weeks after the exams, the results were out; and although I wasn’t the overall best performing student, I was proudly the best performing student in mathematics and the 6th overall best in general. A Togolese, Wodevi by name was the overall best in the school and also the best performing student in English Language.

So while Wodevi and four other got an award in terms of overall performance, I and Wodevi also got one for best performing student in Mathematics and English Language respectively.

Still on the fortunate side, we were further informed that the top five pupils will be awarded with scholarships on our send forth day which was just two weeks away. The scholarship was being awarded by an international body by name Brainfield Analytica identifying and sponsoring top five pupils in selected Public Primary Schools to selected standard and renowned Secondary Schools in Nigeria.

Prior to the event day, the school had forwarded the names of qualified pupils to Brainfield Analytica and also to parents in preparation for the event; and just four days to the scholarship event, Wodevi’s father declined the offer/invitation, his reason being that they were leaving Nigeria and going back to Togo their home country on a permanent basis.

“This gives Ijeoma an opportunity” said the proprietress, and immediately, she instructed Mr. Obinna to quickly prepare an amended list and forward same to her for approval and onward delivery to Brainfield Analytica. The amended list was then backed up with the letter from Wodevi’s father and forwarded on the same day.

On the day of the event, I wasn’t quite expecting to be called, being that there was no word from the school on adoption of the amended list, more so I wasn’t among the original top 5.

However, as faith may have it, I was called out right when I list expected it. The amended list was adopted right on the day of the event as activities went on.

I was overjoyed and if words could explain how I felt, it certainly wouldn’t be sufficient to explain how my mother felt as she cried virtually all the time and when she wasn’t crying she was smiling joyously with tears of joy and relief running down her cheeks.

The proprietress was also taken unawares. She had zeroed her mind on the amended list being that it wasn’t responded to so she didn’t picture me getting the scholarship. She immediately called me after the award ceremony and right in front of everyone she made a power and very inspiring speech about me and admonished parents and pupils to emulate me. What an honour.

Ending her speech she said “I will call you Seven, not only because it is a lucky number, but because you possess the very good qualities of the number Seven in numerology. I hope you continue to grow up in this light, I hope you study more and I hope you get to learn and know the in-depth meaning of the number Seven.”

From that day henceforth, I got stuck with the name Seven. Everyone literally forget my real name, including my Mother who also occasionally calls me Seven. Good a thing, I now know the in-depth meaning and I love it.

Thanks to Brainfield Analytica, their scholarship did not only pull me through secondary school, it also pulled me through medical college and today I am a practicing medical doctor, leaving happily with my mother in a decent city, with a very strong desire to reunite with my father.

Dear Daddy,

If you ever hear or come across our story, please find us, please come home, we have forgiven you and we miss you.

Your Dearest Daughter
Ijeoma.

The End

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