Her name is Blessing Nwafor.
Seventeen year old Blessing Nwafor is but a strip of a girl – having lived well enough with her father, mother and seven other brothers and sisters.
She has not – thanks to the rapist Stanley – completed her high school education.
But this detail is not part of the story I need and wish to share with you.
The story I share has to do with the fact that Blessing Nwafor was raped.
Her attacker is a man known only as Stanley E.
I can also tell you that the rapist and his victim are today the parents of a bouncing-black-baby boy.
I can also tell you that once the bouncing-black-baby boy was born, every one was relieved when it turned out that he was a perfect specimen of a healthy Black man-child.
Thus the conclusion that, this confirmation put paid to the fear that the baby had an abnormal head; one so large that he might be taken to the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) for further medical attention under a neurologist after birth.
Wow!
Now this: Merry Christmas to you and the rest a’yinna.
First, please treat the following information as if it was the truth.
Believe me when I tell you that pediatricians at the hospital in Enugu had placed Baby Blessing in an incubator to correct his temperature, which read 35 degrees centigrade at birth.
Note also that the news of the plight of the baby’s teenaged mother is so very sad.
You see, she was raped.
While in Enugu on a business and heritage trip, I learned that the President of the Global Society for Anti-Corruption, Mr. Frank Ezeona, saw Blessing Nwafor wandering on the street after she could not get help from a church in Enugu.
One of my cousins in Enugu told me that a lifeline came the way of Blessing when one of the protocol officers of Governor Sullivan Chime called up him up, saying that the governor and his wife after reading the story were moved with compassion and had asked that Blessing Nwafor be brought to them.
This cousin of mine – Emechkwu Eze-Eze-Bello – told me that Blessing was in good hands; that the Enugu State governor and his wife had promised to give Blessing Nwafor all necessary medication needed to save her life and that of her baby.
Blessing also told me that on April 16, this year Stanley E. had raped and impregnated her.
According to this girl, she had gone to Stanley’s house to collect her Mathematics textbook when the teacher said to be in his 40s pounced on her and abused her sexually.
After this, Stanley bolted from the neighborhood and since then nobody has seen him.
So there you go, Blessing Nwafor was raped; Stanley gone and the baby born.
That attack took place some time and some how in April of this year.
That was then; this is now – and for sure, Christmas is on its inevitable collusion-path with the Carnival; and some of the Negroes are as giddy as ever.
Now to the real business at hand: In life, things happen.
So [as I have already confessed] just the other day I found myself in Enugu, Nigeria. I was there on business. But you know how things sometimes just happen.
While I was in Enugu, one thing led to the other and I found myself being regaled with the story of how [that dog] Stanley E. had raped Blessing Nwafor.
As a consequence of her decision to carry Stanley’s baby to term, Blessing Nwafor is today the mother of a bouncing baby boy.
One of the local papers in Enugu carried Blessing’s story this way:
"Teenage girl, Blessing Nwafor whose teacher raped and impregnated has been delivered of a baby boy by doctors at the ESUT Teaching Hospital, Enugu without the anticipated abnormalities.
"An earlier Ultra-sound scan result conducted on Blessing, 17, had shown that her baby had an enlarged head with the brain area covered by water, making medical professionals to suggest the evacuation of the baby on the argument that its birth would cause some social nuisance.
Her doctor was none other than the world renowned consultant obstetrician-gynecologist, Dr Matthew I. Eze. [Incidentally, this great doctor told me that he studied in Aberdeen, Scotland at the same time as his good friend, Dr. Bernard J. Nottage – another renowned obstetrician-gynecologist.]
I said Wow!
As that great one did indicate, "I can confirm to you that the baby is doing well and showing all reflexes a normal baby should show, that is, sucking and kicking of his legs and other parts of the body."
In the meantime, I learned while I was in Enugu that, Blessing who was wheeled out from the Main Theatre of ESUT Teaching Hospital at 1:35 p.m. on Monday, thanked the doctors led by Dr. Eze, and Enugu’s First Lady, Clara Chime, for coming to her rescue.
An ecstatic Blessing Nwafor exclaimed, "I am grateful to Her Excellency who has given me motherly care. She came here last Friday to see me and to give me words of encouragement. May God bless her for me. I am happy that my baby is alive."
So am I also happy to know that Blessing’s baby is alive.
But before I go any further with Blessing’s story concerning how she was raped and how much she loves her child, please permit my apology for this necessary fiction.
In addition, I admit that the story is really not one that is fit and proper for a happy time like Christmas. And most assuredly, I confess that I was trying to find something to say concerning the drummer boy and his drum.
I also tried to figure out how to say something smart about how there were all those oxen, asses and twinkling lights in the sky and as to how some wise dudes came around town bearing gifts of myrrh, frankincense and gold.
But sadly, all I could think about was the fact that Stanley E. had raped Blessing Nwafor; and that the brutal act has led to the birth of a child; and that mother and child are doing well in Enugu, Nigeria.
But take note that before I go any further with this stuff you need to also be aware of the fact that all of what follows is but one merrily fictional installment in an ongoing series of writings I truthfully call, "necessary fictions." Thus, the fiction that I had met with a number of people I just happened to have met in Enugu, Nigeria.
And so, before I get to the "encounter" I had with Blessing Nwafor, I would like to let you know how it came to be that I was in Nigeria in the first place.
What happened was that I was on a self-imposed pilgrimage/business trip to the Motherland; this would have taken place last week just as my classes in the College/University of The Bahamas had finally ended.
This is that special something I always wanted to do.
And so, once the money and the plane became available, I jumped on the first thing smoking – and so you have to ‘believe’ me when I tell you that I was delirious with joy when the British Airways plane set down in Lagos.
From Lagos, I took ground transportation to Enugu.
While I can regale you with a report about the sights I saw and the people I met, I will not do so today. This will come again in the New Year, God willing.
See you later. Ciao. Hasta la vista, bebe!
Get it?
Anyway, Good-bye for now.
