Fiction and Articles

I had coined this name for myself a couple of months back. Cheesy yet cool. I like to pride myself in being a Lagos girl. I will shout it to the rooftop and tell it on the mountains. The best place to be in the world is Lagos, Nigeria. Maybe, someday, I will write about that. But today’s article is different. It's about my experience indeed as a Lagos Girl in the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria. The F.C.T isn’t new to me. I had been here numerous times either for school, work, leisure, or vacation but a couple of weeks ago, a new reality dawned on me when for the first time in my existence I booked a one-way trip to Abuja. My flight tickets were always for round trips. Thankfully I had familiar faces to welcome me and friends’ kind enough to give me shelter and take me out to dinner. But after a couple of days, I started to ask myself questions and at a point I even shed a few tears. I am a Nigerian through and through and I count it a privilege to live in a community

I had just watched “To Kill A Tiger” an emotional documentary centered around a 13-year old girl who had been gang raped by three young adults in her community. The girl’s family had reported to the police and sought justice from the courts. The community started to pressure the girl’s father saying he should marry her off to one of the boys who had raped her to take away the “stain” from her and recover his right standing in society. This was my first time encountering the “marry-your-rapist” notion. After two hours and a few tears shed, I finished the documentary and wrote a caption I intended to post on my WhatsApp story. The caption went thus “Any society that supports the marry-your-rapist notion should have a place worse than hell reserved for them”. Just before I hit the post icon, I typed the word marry your rapist in google and found that it was a law or concept that protected the honour of a rape victim. It still did not make sense to me. Who started this and how did it st

  "Chika, you know I don’t believe in International Women’s Day. We already have Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, Children’s Day. Which one is Women’s Day again? If anything, we should thank the women who fought for equality of rights in the 18 th /19 th century. And that’s even the fault of their generation that had men with a different mentality and believed so much in patriarchy. Also, I don’t mind patriarchy if my Father, Brother and Husband are doing what is right and looking after me and providing for me. I am a woman with breasts and periods. With a womb and back to carry children. Nature has already assigned me responsibilities. It is fine. I am okay. I am complete. Whether I can vote or not. Whether I have property or not. Whether I am educated or not. I know this might sound shallow but that is just my unpopular opinion on a popular day."   To the real women, who despite the odds, show up every day. Every day is your day.

  Seek and you shall find.  P.s- fadekealabi106@gmail.com