“When I found out I was pregnant, immediately I developed a headache,” Azuka Ogujiuba, an award-winning style journalist, says. “My world became gloomy and sadness became my companion.”
The reason was simple: she was unmarried. “I think I lost my appetite,” she continues. “I wanted to abort the pregnancy. I couldn’t believe it, because the doctor had earlier said I had fibroids. I had to carry out three pregnancy tests before it dawned on me that it was real, I was even planning to do the fourth, my friends had to shout me back to reality. I was so ashamed to tell my family, especially my mother, because I am her first child. I have three younger sisters. While I cried that night, I jumped and drank Red Label to see if the pregnancy would fall off like they say, but it didn’t.”
‘The best decision I have ever made’
Beatrice Osindero (not real names) found out she was pregnant when she was in school abroad and was barely 20. “The first thing I wanted to do was get away,” she tells me. “I could have married (the father) but I wasn’t going to make that kind of decision or burn my fingers any further. For a few months no one knew. I was just strategising till I told a close friend. Along the line, my folks found out and asked what I wanted to do. I decided I wanted to be a mother.”
Now, Ms. Osindero says keeping her almost-two-year-old daughter “the best decision I have ever made”.
“Babies bring joy,” she says. “They turnaround situations; they are barrier breakers. When God wants to change things he sends babies. Forget about the cost of pampers, baby food, clothes etc. When a baby breaks forth, something happens, the mother too knows she has done something remarkable. Today, I know this is God’s gift to me. She didn’t come the way I wanted, but not all great things come the regular/normal way.”
Single and stigmatised
Single unmarried women in Nigeria can be targets for disrespect; even worse for the single mother.
“I remembered when I was I growing up and one of my childhood friends got pregnant,” Ms. Ogujiuba recalls. “We all isolated her, gossiped and condemned what she did. We all said, who will marry her? Nobody will marry this spoilt girl. Our friend became a prisoner, she did not come out anymore, and whenever we passed by her, we would be peeping to see how big her belly was. When I got pregnant, I remembered that incident.”
Thankfully though, children are not stigmatised in Nigeria – at least officially. Said the summary from a United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child meeting held in Geneva, “Children born out of wedlock in Nigeria (are) not stigmatised. In Nigeria, it was considered that a child must always be looked after. Birth certificates (do) not state whether the child was legitimate or not.”
The real father
Still, for the female in Nigeria, raising a child without the father can be challenging.
“Challenges were expected,” Ms. Osindero says. “It’s difficult having a 9-5 job, taking care of a child, school runs, costs, laundry, cooking, baby-sitting all combined with little help, but I must say God has been good to me. He always paves a way for me. I can’t pretend to be a dad. It’s just that I’m now an executive chairman. I can never be both to be honest, and I won’t push. She (my baby) leads a normal life and that’s most important to me. As for the baby’s father, he is alive and I believe he is well, but I don’t want to talk about him really. We lead different lives.”
The case is different for Ms. Ogujiuba.
“Sometimes, my daughter just mentions “daddy”, then I pick up my phone call her father and then they chat. Her father lives and works in Holland. He talks to her very often and whenever he is in the country, they meet. Sometimes, I wish he were around to help out, but I am a very strong person by nature and can be very independent minded. So most times, I call on God to take control; he is the real father my daughter has.”
Sunshine after the darkness
She says having a strong network of friends was invaluable.
“The decision to keep the pregnancy was mostly that of my friends who were so supportive,” she reveals. “Even when I said I wanted to have an abortion, they abused me and scared me by saying ‘This might be the only child you will ever have in your life. Anybody can say what they want to say; are you living your life for people?’” Her baby will be three this month and she calls her “my sunshine”.
Beyond sunshine, for Ms. Osindero, her baby is the sum of all the good she wished for. “This has broadened my horizon about life,” she says. “I had things planned out but they didn’t work my way and before this happened I was wondering what my life was all about, what my purpose was, I thought I was a big joke really. But this changed everything – for the better. Some unpleasant situations carry opportunities with them. For me this was and is an opportunity and a privilege and I am grateful.”
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