Baby mi jowo o, je ka jo ma gbaadun! Ebenezer Obey's Oloomi gbo temi fills the room and it has lovers holding hands, moving from side to side. Singles are admiring each other from across the room, the olekus and the danshikis are turning heads.

It is the 1980s at the Ogun State Polytechnic Abeokuta. The social night has everyone buzzing at the sight of different performances, ranging from stage plays to musical performances, and games. At the end of the event, the atmosphere is serenaded with the musical chords of Fela, Obey, and Aruna Ishola, and it has everyone filling the dance floor. The ladies are whining their waists and the gentlemen move from side to side enjoying the music as though they were on cloud nine.

"Sandalili sandalili sandalili, I'm a princess in my country if you look at me upandan you will know that is true!” Banke sings at the top of her voice as she sees her friend finding space to get to her through the crowd. Aderiyiike appears in an Oleku-style made from Aso-oke. She has beads sitting on her neck and gracing her wrists. Her koroba from Iya Abebi has her forehead shining and she is standing gallantly on her stilettos.

“The adúmáradán of our time! I'm sorry I came late, I had to appear like the sisí that I am and òrémi you know how these things go”. Aderiyike pulls her friend into a warm embrace while complimenting her dark skin. Banke melts and all her plans of seething are scattered. They find a space in the dancing crowd and let their dancing shoes do the magic.

The two friends were lost in the musical realm of Fela's water no get enemy when they were brought back to reality by the young man wrapping his hands around Riyike's waist. Her body protested this uninvited visitor but as she turned to protest, his face had her melting and before she knew it she was wrapped around him in his room.

Banke battles with the untarred road leading to her hostel as she walks angrily. Her bank of memories with her friend just got robbed as they are counting down to their last days in Poly. She bangs the door open and crashes into her bed calling it a night.

Minutes have rolled into hours to days when Riyiike walks into her friend at the motion ground but she found her way to the floor as her friend brushes past her. She hastily carries her bag and harnesses the spirit of flash in her as she finds her way to Banke's hostel. “I am very sorry” Riyiike mutters. "I am sorry for being friends with you, you are nothing but a bird who constantly finds food to perch on!” Banke fires back. Her jaw drops and her mouth fills with air before she closes it. Her friend has never spoken to her in this manner.

“But he is different, Eniiyi loves me and he has plans for me", she protests. Banke is taken aback by her foolishness but before she could mutter a word, Riyiike begins to recount the story of how love at first sight brought her to this world. Banke retreated and coloured the room with prayers of guidance for a friend.

It is a bright sunny day and congratulations fill the air as the Ogun Poly set of 1985 have their shirts signed by their juniors, friends and even lecturers. They have finally reached the end of the tunnel, ready to conquer the world. Banke and Aderiyiike were signing on each other's shirts when Riyiike made a mess of Banke's shirt as she vomits. Eyes and mouths were wide open as a party had been disgraced on a memorable day, once again.

Quite a number of people hovered around the health centre by the time it was Riyiike's turn to see the doctor, she was already looking pale. However, this made it easier for the doctor who hastily sent her urine sample to the laboratory to get her diagnosis.

“I am pregnant!” she announces to her friend as she retires to her bed. You are preg- what?! , Banke expresses shock and disappointment was written all over her face as she recounts all their after-school plans to her friend who is very aware of this. But in no time, she wears the garment of a comforter asking the right and most important question but she is struck by another wave of shock when her friend who is now wailing explains to her how Eniiyi the father of the baby kicked her out of his apartment when she announced his new status. “Eniiyi indeed!”, Banke seethes.

It has been two weeks since Riyiike found out she was pregnant and it is finally time to leave Abeokuta for her home town, Oyo. She looks sick from crying herself to sleep every night not just because of the new gift she has acquired but because the plans of moving to Lagos with her friend and starting life as a working-class will not see the light of day. It was a silent ride from the school hostel to the bus park until it was time to say goodbyes when the floodgates of heaven opened. The two friends hugged and prayed for each other till the agbero shouted, “Mútò ti kún o, Òyó àti Èkó ti yáa”!

Aderiyiike was welcomed in grand style, the singers eulogizing her, Kaabo o, Kaabo, Aderiyiike ti fáasitì de ooo, Kaabo! Tears rolled down her cheeks because she knew she came bearing good news at the wrong time but her teeth were wide open and her eyes were lit with joy as her father and the community sang her praises.

The next morning, she charged herself with words of encouragement and mapped a plan to put the pregnancy undercover for the time being but as she stepped out to the kitchen to help her stepmother, she heard screams. “Moróunmúbò, aféfé ti fé ati rí fùrò adìye”! Her stepmum dragged her to the living room where her father was seen stamping his foot and fuming. Her friend, Banke had given her away and before she could utter a word, she had reached the 7th heavens as the ìgbájú olóyì sent by her father landed on her face.

"Ba-aa-miii”, Aderiyiike retorted. Her father would not bulge. He put her on his okada, off to the park and warned her sternly never to step foot in his house. She had gone against the tradition and as a Chief, he did not want to be disgraced by the Royal house and the community after all, her mother was dead.

Aderiyiike was swept off of her by the sand of betrayal but she managed to reach a clinic, whose number she found on the wall with the inscription, “Call Dr. Tamedun for your abortions”.

As she staggered into the clinic, she was met by the doctor who was ready to take the bull by the horn with his suction cannula. His lack of empathy made her sweaty as she felt like her soul was about to leave her body. In the heat of the moment, her sympathetic nervous system gave in and she took to her heels.

She was stopped by a woman who introduced herself as a social worker who volunteered for an NGO that aimed at helping troubled persons. Exhausted Aderiyiike followed the woman to her house damning all consequences. On getting to the house, she narrated her ordeal- She is the only child of her late mum, following her death, her father remarried and all hell let loose. Her stepmom became the weapon fashioned against her as she assumed the role of a tyrant and dictator, even her father succumbed to her wishes without questioning. She mentioned subbing that the only way she could please her father was to do well in school and when she resumed the polytechnic, she started receiving attention from different men, one she was very new to and it felt good because she had never received love like that. She further explained that she tried her best to manage it till she met Eniiyi that night and he swept her off her feet to a place of destruction.

The God-sent woman threw her into her arms charging her not to blame herself as it wasn't her fault she craved love because, at the end of the day, we all want love.

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Nine months later, with the help of the NGO, she gave birth to a bouncing baby boy who was called Ifelayo meaning love is peace and she vowed to raise him with a love so deep, the ocean would be jealous!

#ProwritersChallenge24 #February