Posted by From CHIDI NNADI, Enugu on
For Blessing Nwafor, 17, from Nwaezeko, Abakiliki in Ebonyi State life has become a misery as her family members and others she had run to have abandoned her. Now, the doctors say her life is in danger as she is discharging yellowish fluid mixed with blood.
For Blessing Nwafor, 17, from Nwaezeko, Abakiliki in Ebonyi State life has become a misery as her family members and others she had run to have abandoned her. Now, the doctors say her life is in danger as she is discharging yellowish fluid mixed with blood.
The travails of the vulnerable young girl started when on April 16, this year her lesson teacher whose name she could only remember as Stanley E. raped and impregnated her in the process.
According to Blessing, an SS3 student of St. Jude Secondary School, Nwaezeko, Abakiliki, she had gone to Stanley's house to collect her Mathematics textbook she would use to do a test the next day in school when the lesson teacher started preaching to her about love.
'He told me that he loves me and that he would want us to make love. I told him no, that he is too old for my age and that I am his student, but he grabbed me and locked his door. He raised the volume of his radio as I started shouting. He tore my shirt and pants and raped me as I was crying and begging him to leave me alone.
After making love to me he told me sorry and I left his house crying. People in the neighbourhood were asking me what happened, but I could not tell them because I was ashamed,' she said.
After she was raped by Stanley who also told her that he works with the Ebonyi State government, Blessing missed her monthly period in April, making her return to Stanley 's house to tell him of the development.
She told Daily Sun that Stanley only gave her 16 tablets. She could not say their names and brand and asked her to take eight in the morning and another eight in the evening.
She said after taking the drugs, she became uncomfortable for the whole day, but nothing happened and she did not tell her parents of what transpired.
But after four months, she became very sick and as this was persistent and regular she told her elder sister what had happened to her.
Her elder sister then told their mother who told their father. Unfortunately for her, her no nonesense father swore that she would not bear a bastard in his house.
Thus her father, Mr Chinedu Nwafor, took her to Stanley's house, but they were shocked to see that he had packed out from the house and vamoosed into the thin air.
Those living in the neighbourhood told them that Stanley had packed out in the dead of the night soon after Blessing came to tell him that she was pregnant.
Her father also took her to the Ebonyi State Government house, but the government workers said they knew nobody with named Stanley E.
Last month, Blessing's father chased her away, telling her never to come home again.
As she was wandering on the street, a Good Samaritan doctor saw her and took her to his house, but the doctor's wife did not like the idea of her husband bringing home a strange pregnant teenager.
According to Blessing, she stayed in the house of the doctor for one month. When he contacted her elder sister and she was taken to St. Jude's Hospital in Abakiliki.
' At St. Jude, they did scan for me and said that they saw a baby boy, but that part of the body of the baby is damaged already. So, they told my sister that they would need N150,000 to carry out an operation on me for me to survive. This made my sister to abandon me there and run away.
'This was happening around 7p.m. so the doctor there said I should be allowed to pass the night there and to leave in the morning. I pleaded with the doctor to carry out the operation as I pledged that after it I will be working for his hospital to defray the bill, but he refused and instead gave me N500 to go home.
'I used the N500 to go back to the first doctor that took me to his hospital; when I explained to him what happened he said there was nothing he could do again, he gave me N300 to go back to my house.
'But when I got home, my father disowned me completely, saying that his daughter who bears Blessing had long died. I cried and cried, but he chased me away.
'This happened on a Sunday and I left and was wandering until Tuesday when I decided to go to Father Mbaka in Enugu for Adoration Worship. After Adoration, I wanted to see Father Mbaka, but the security men did not allow me and on Thursday the security men chased me away. I stayed outside the Adoration centre gate.
'It was at the gate that two boys and two girls saw me and bought me food after which they paid my fare to St Mary Catholic Church, Trans-Ekulu, Enugu last Thursday. At the church one of the reverend fathers gave me N300 to go home, but I remained in the church because I had no place to go to,' Blessing explained.
At the close of church service on Sunday, Blessing began another walk into the unknown when she now met the President of Global Society for Anti-Corruption, Mr Frank Ezeona by the side of St Mary Catholic Church who bought her food.
After eating, she said that Ezeona also gave her some tissue papers from his car with which she changed her pad and later brought her to Daily Sun office in Enugu where Blessing who was sobbing profusely asked other Nigerians to come to her rescue.
Moved by her plight, Ezeona, therefore, called on public-spirited individuals, as well as the Ebonyi and Enugu State Governments to come to the aid of Blessing before she dies.