Welp!

I was a child, barely 5 Years old in fact when I first saw Dada beat Mum.

I can never forget how resounding the slap was, or how much it had scared me. It made me cry, I was overwhelmed because the only time I have heard a slap that loud was when Mummy slapped me for spilling the oil she bought from her meagre salary, the very thing she used to take care of myself, my two older brothers and the little twins. She had slapped me out of frustration.

Over the years Dada graduated from slapping Mummy to hitting her, with everything he could lay his hands on.

When I became a teenager, I confronted Dada on why he hit Mummy. I was OK with it as a child because it looked normal, Dada wasn’t the only man that hit his wife, a few of our neighbours too do.

Matter of fact, Papa and Mama Ojima were always the topic of discussion among our neighbours while they did their chores, their loud fights, the screams, the breaking of things.

Dada told me it is not abuse, that is was correction and it turned out, there was a penal code that supported his claims, Section(55)(1)(d) of the Penal Code of Northern Nigeria, the part of the World we come from makes it legal for a man to beat his wife for the purpose of correcting her.

I loved Dada, craved his approval, so I took it as the truth. Violence was love to me.

It was all I grew up around, it was all I knew, until it wasn’t. I was 23, with an abusive boyfriend, yet like my Mummy I kept saying “It is nothing major, marriage and relationships are all about endurance, he will change.” I became the very exact person I hated my Mother being. But it was all I knew.

Then I got the call.

Dada and Mummy had gotten into it again, but this time, Mummy was not only in hospital, but in the mortuary, the fight she endured had seen her end. I was speechless at first, I could not cry, couldn’t fight. I was just blank. Mummy endured this and hoped Dada would change. But that was never to be.

Walking out of the Police station, I willed myself not to turn again, Dada and my boyfriend can spend the rest of their lives in jail for all I care.

My Mother didn’t protect me, she exposed me to violence and made me think it was OK, it is my time now to walk away, and protect the fetus growing inside me, and the first step towards achieving was making sure I not only heal from the abuse I have been exposed to but also ensure the perpetrators of that abuse get their due punishment.

It falls on me to correct the wrongs of my Mother, and I won’t, just like her, lose my life before learning.