These stories should have been part of the countdown in terms of chronology, but I removed them, along with several others, because I did not want the celebration of such a significant age, 40, to be hijacked or to be confronted with alternative facts about intent and awareness.
I have done three videos on grooming on YouTube already, and in those videos I spoke about what I went through as a child, the gossip, the rumours, the assault and the bullying I had to endure.
This particular story was something I intended to talk about in another live video, but I have decided to write about it instead because it needs more body.
It needs to be said properly.
What some people call gist or harmless gossip about a child or a young adult can have serious and long-term consequences for that person, and I think many people still do not fully understand that.
There is a statement I hear often that “bad girls” seem to marry earlier than the “good girls,” and that somehow the consequences of their promiscuity never catch up with them.
Of course, many expect those girls to be left very high on the shelf where they can be pointed at as an example for younger girls.
What many people miss is that when a girl child is labelled as wayward and society begins to treat her differently, she can start to feel pressure to settle as quickly as possible. She begins to seek safety in marriage because our society tends to show more respect to a married woman than to a single one.
I have been in a queue before where a man tried to cut in front of me. He did not take it well when I asked him to wait his turn.
He threatened to slap me and told me he had a woman like me at home.
I told him he could not possibly have a woman like me at home because a woman like me could never settle for a man like him.
He actually tried to come and fight me but was restrained by the men at the Glo office where we had all gathered to do NIN registration.
He was still mouthing off about how I would die single.
This was in 2022.
If I had been wearing a wedding ring or “looked married,” the situation would probably not have escalated. It would have been:
“Sorry ma.”
Or:
“Na wa o, your blood dey hot.”
I refused to provide additional information about being married with five children.
Just respect women.
So sometimes what people are observing is not a woman who simply got lucky.
Sometimes they are looking at a woman who was bullied into settling.
I faced that pressure myself.
I chose to move abroad instead, far away from the monitoring spirits.
But moving did not erase the years of rumours that had already been attached to my name.
When I came back to Nigeria in 2013 for my traditional marriage, I heard that I was marrying a white man because I was so wayward that no responsible Igbo man would marry me.
From the age of 13, I was accused of trying to snatch husbands.
As ridiculous as that sounds now, at the time it was something that seemed to follow me everywhere.
Over time, it started to feel as if every new male around me was somehow being sent in my direction like some sick challenge.
Some would even chuckle and say things like:
“I have heard so much about you.”
Or:
“Are you the Jennifer?”
At first, I was not sure.
Later, it became very clear.
And the consequences of those rumours did not stay in childhood.
They followed me into adulthood in ways that still amaze me when I think back.
The HPV Vaccine
In 2006, the HPV vaccine became available.
I remember attending a seminar about its effectiveness in reducing the risk of cervical cancer.
The hospital my father worked for received some doses shortly after, and a message was sent around for staff members to register their families if they wanted them vaccinated.
My father mentioned it, and I signed up immediately.
I have always been very pro-vaccine, especially after losing a friend to hepatitis in boarding school.
I remember literally running home to ask my father for the hepatitis vaccine then.
So when my appointment day came, I went as normal.
There was a nurse there muttering to another nurse about how there was a shortage of vaccines and that:
“the innocent girls should get it first.”
She was not speaking directly to me.
She was speaking loudly enough for me to hear.
I mean, if I had been snatching husbands since 1999, surely the HPV vaccine was being wasted on me.
I remember standing there and telling her very calmly that I would be getting my vaccine.
But imagine that.
Even healthcare workers can absorb gossip so deeply that they begin to treat people through the lens of rumour instead of reality.
And even if it had been reality, were they not still bound by duty of care?
The HIV Testing Days
Every 1st of December, the hospital also did HIV awareness campaigns.
They would set up testing stations so people could check their status and know where they stood.
I always tested willingly.
I was sure I did not have HIV.
There would always be at least two people commenting on how bold I was and how my results would spread.
And I used to wonder:
Why would they assume I had HIV?
HIV testing used to be part of standard pre-employment screening until it was stopped more recently to reduce discrimination against people living with HIV.
So I had already done it when I worked for a catering company in 2006 and again when I did my industrial training in 2007.
Even though company hospitals no longer routinely run those tests for employment, some women still insist on HIV testing and even pregnancy testing for their nannies because they are still married to the men I supposedly “snatched” at a tender age.
Because once people decide who they think you are, everything you do becomes evidence for a story they already wrote about you.
Even Medical Professionals Joined In
By that point, PCOS was already kicking my backside.
I was gaining weight.
I was pre-diabetic.
I was only having about three periods a year.
The resident gynaecologist kept telling me to wait and that things would correct themselves naturally.
This was almost twenty years ago, when PCOS was not spoken about the way it is now.
Eventually a visiting doctor came through, and I went for a second opinion.
He was the one who finally put me on oral contraceptives.
Microgynon 30
He gave me a three-month supply.
When it finished, I went back for a refill. My doctor was unavailable, and the nurses told me that since it was “just a refill,” I should ask the paediatrician to write it.
So I went to him and explained.
He chuckled.
Then he said:
“Those pills will not save you from STDs.”
I was livid.
Years of rumours and gossip had reached a point where even trained professionals were behaving foolishly.
And that is what people do not understand.
Gossip does not always stay in living rooms and family compounds.
Sometimes it enters hospitals too.
The Industrial Training
In 2007, I wanted to do my industrial training at the company where my father worked.
That was not unusual.
Relatives of staff often got placements there.
My father applied on my behalf.
Instead of a straightforward approval, the man in charge of recruitment called me in for a meeting.
He told me they only wanted serious people at the organisation.
And to establish that I was serious, I would have to sit an aptitude test.
Now it is possible the company was becoming more competitive.
That part may be true.
But I also know this:
I became the first person required to take that test for industrial training. That aptitude test was usually for graduate trainees at the time.
Some of my friends in HR were shocked by it.
They quietly kept an eye on things to make sure no nonsense happened.
And I passed.
I passed properly.
After that, I heard applicants after me had to do the same test.
A company can make policy changes whenever they want.
But I will never forget the way he spoke to me.
The look on his face.
The attitude behind it.
And to make it worse, he was my neighbour.
The Pregnancy Rumour
Around 2010, I went for an ultrasound for my PCOS.
The scan machine was the old kind with grainy images, so you had to drink a lot of water beforehand to fill your bladder.
It was normal for pregnant women to sit outside drinking water while waiting for their scans.
My not-pregnant self sat there doing exactly the same thing.
And that was enough.
That was how the pregnancy rumour started.
As if that was not enough, a few days later I made things worse without meaning to.
I was rushing to work and had taken antibiotics on an empty stomach.
Hendrie had picked me up and brought breakfast for me in the car.
By the time we got to the gate of the Industrial Area, my stomach turned.
I had to jump out of the car and vomit into the gutter right there by security.
I can laugh about it now.
But at the time, it was humiliating.
And for people who lived off gossip, it was perfect fuel.
What People Do Not Understand
Once people become invested in a story about you, they do not always want to see you escape it.
That is why I say this now:
Your gossip about a child may be entertainment for you.
It may be social currency.
It may simply be gist.
But for that child, it can become something they carry for years.
Sometimes decades.
It can affect the way people see them.
The way professionals treat them.
The way opportunities come to them.
The way they move through the world.
Grooming and gossip can lead to:
- discrimination
- humiliation
- oppression
- delayed healing
- lifelong damage to self-worth
I have stories for days.
But this is enough to say what I came to say.
We can all do better.
And we should.
