N.B:
I noticed that a vandal tried to alter the text in my story.



[size=14pt]Love Child[/size]

I

Abba sat up on the couch and sighed.
Dr. Williams smirked as he regarded him.
“You said she must have been pregnant before you slept with her?”
Abba nodded affirmatively.
“I was suspicious, because she kept on persuading me to stop using the condom.  I was reluctant, but she kept on saying she preferred it without the condom.  So, when I finished using the last condom, there was no excuse to refuse her request.”
“Did you not warn her about the risks of STDs and AIDS?”
“I did.  But, she swore that she was all right and had no infections.  I was scared.
Because, this was our first meeting and it was a plunge in the dark to believe her, hook, sink and line.  But, I did it for love.”
Dr. Williams laughed.
“You really risked your life.”
“Yeah.  Falling in love is risky.”
“One night in Cleveland and she was already pregnant?”
“That was what she said.”
“But, you said you gave her money for Postenoir 2?”
“Yes.”
“And she said she took the pills?”
“Yes.  She insisted that she did.  But my physician said that if she actually did as prescribed, she wouldn’t be pregnant.”
“So, she could have been pregnant already, before your meeting.”
“My fears were based on two reasons.  The first premise was her insistence on visiting her.  She pleaded persistently until I agreed.  Then, the second premise was her insistence that I should make love to her without the condom until I agreed.  Why would she be so anxious to have sex with me when she did not even know about my medical history and was risky sleeping with a man you were meeting for the first time?”
“Both of you were ready to love and be damned.”
“I felt bad after doing so.”
“And you said she asked you why you were feeling worried?”
“Yes.  And I told her that we have sinned.  So, I asked her to kneel down with me to ask God for forgiveness.”
“She knelt down?”
“Yes.  And we prayed for forgiveness.”
Dr. Williams was taking notes.  He sighed and said, “Abba, you could be right”.
Abba looked up at him as he sat on his desk.
“It could be she was already pregnant by default in a sexual encounter with someone she couldn’t or didn’t feel safe or secured to accept the responsibility and she lured you into her compromise.  Or she was really in love with you and wanted both of you to have a love child.”
“Only God knows the truth,” Abba concluded.
“I would have loved to discuss with her,” said Dr. Williams.
“But, she has ended the relationship and said I should leave her and her complicated life.”
“Abba, you mean she actually said her complicated life?”
“Yes.”
“Poor girl.”
“I really loved her and working hard to take care of her.”
“But, she does not believe you.  Poor confused girl.”
“She loves guys who flatter and pamper her,” Abba said.
“Conceit and deceit have ruined millions of ignorant people.  But our society is full of conceit and deceit,” Dr. Williams said.  “But how complicated is her life?”
“She is the one complicating her life, “ Abba replied.
“You warned her not to commit abortion and she did it.  She did it to hide the truth.
When you said she must have a test to prove if you were responsible, she got scared and knew that the test would vindicate you.  So, she got rid of the pregnancy.  Then, she accessed your e-mails and deleted all the records of the facts to destroy the evidence of the truth that would have indicted her.  Abba, she is the classic Freudian femme fatale.  She is the classic stuff of a Harold Robbins’s novel.  And that is what you loved about her-the romance of her thrilling existence.  You always loved the Catherine Tramell character in Basic Instinct and see yourself as Det. Nick Curran, playing Michael Douglas to a Sharon Stone and have what Det. Nick Curran called the sex of the century.  And she gave it to you?”
Abba nodded affirmatively.
“When she said she was pregnant, she wanted us to keep it and I told her to tell her mother. But, she refused, because she said her mother would insist on aborting it as her mother did when her elder twin-sisters were pregnant. She said she was afraid of the dangers of abortion, because she could die in the process. Then, I told her to confide in her grandmother and she refused. She said she must get away before any member of her family discovered that she was pregnant. She wanted us to find where she would stay. But, I told her that running away from home would worsen the situation. Then, to stop her from running away from home, I said until she proved that I was responsible, I would not accept the fatherhood of her baby and she agreed. Then, later she said she was not even pregnant as I mentioned earlier,” Abba elaborated.
“Abba, she has the characteristics of one of the post modern femmes fatales as defined in the following words from Wikipedia:
The phrase is French for "deadly woman", or "fatal woman".  The femme fatale would try to achieve her hidden purpose by using her feminine wiles (beauty, charm, sexual skill), and thus she is typically portrayed as exceptionally well endowed with these qualities.  However, in some situations, lying or coercion could be just as effective.
Although typically villainous, femmes fatales have also been known to be antiheroines in some stories, and sometimes they even repent and become heroines by the end of the tale.  (See e.g. Bell, Book and Candle.)  Today, the archetype is generally seen as a character who constantly crosses the line between good and evil, acting unscrupulously despite social norms and any overt allegiances she may have to the hero.
In social life, the femme fatale would torture her lover in an asymmetrical relationship, denying confirmation of her affection, let alone the opposite, 'till the point of the male becoming obsessed, addicted and exhausted, and incapable of rational decisions or managing one's personal life.
She is promiscuous, flirtatious, and amorous.  Her father wanted to rape her and her stepbrother actually raped her.  And she said she could not remember the number of boys and men she had slept with?”
Abba nodded affirmatively.
“She said her father never accepted her, because he disputed her paternity until she was seven. I rebuked her when she called her father an arsehole,” Abba said.
“The sooner she goes for rehab the better,” Dr. Williams said.  “Her guilty conscience could prick her for life.  She needs help urgently, because, the consequences would be adverse to her in other relationships.  The rebounds would do her more harm than good,” he added.
"She has gone to a Christian Bible School," Abba said.
"Many use church for camouflage.  It is sheer escapism from a state of defeatism.  She needs rehab. Her social and psychological issues must be addressed first before the spiritual solution," said Dr. Williams.  "I have read her earlier diaries and they showed a teenage girl crying out for help.  But, she has a love and hate complex for the opposite sex.  She loves to hate men, because of what her father did to her and her step-brother complicated it," he added.
"She has also deleted the blog where she posted her intimate confessions.  And I was actually wondering why she suddenly wanted to hide the truth from the public?”  Abba said.
“There is someone she must hide the truth from, because if the person discovers the facts, her relationship and future with the person could be jeopardized,” Dr. Williams said.
“True love never lies.  You do not hide the truth from someone you love.  Telling lies and hiding the truth will only worsen her case,” Abba said.
“She trying to be smart," said Dr. Williams and sighed.
“To con another person?”  Abba asked.
“May be.  She has found another target she wants to trap with another overnight pregnancy,” said Dr. Williams.
“Nigerian schemers and scammers on the internet,” Abba said.
“She could be lucky this time.  Or she could actually be in love with a new guy and believes that hiding the records of her imperfect past would be better and safer.  She could be afraid that if he discovers the truth about her, he would be disappointed and the bitter truth could put him off,” said Dr. Williams.
“Then, he does not love her. She confessed everything to me and I still accepted her,” Abba said.
“You think you are Jesus and she was a Mary Magdalene,” Dr. Williams said and chuckled.
“But now she is desperate to destroy every shred of evidence that might disgrace her,” Abba said.
“She is only feeling insecure and haunted my her past misdeeds,” Dr. Williams concluded.
“May God save her from her worse fears,” Abba said.
“Amen,” Dr. Williams grunted. 

II
Dominique Sigaud was in tears the day she broke the bad news to us.
Nigerian hoodlums attacked a French diplomat and his family as they were on their way to the Murtala Muhammad International Airport (MMIA) in Ikeja, Lagos.  They raped his beautiful wife and pretty daughter by the roadside and disappeared in the darkness of the night in Oshodi.

“You Nigerians are ashamed to report that you have been raped.  And you protect the rapist when you don't report the crime and there is no prosecution and the rapist goes unpunished while the victim lives with the scars and haunted by the nightmares," Dominique said.

Her words rang in my head as I stood before the audience of students in Oduduwa Hall.
They looked up in rapt attention as I delivered my paper on Rape and The Consequences on Women in Nigeria.

“Is the Nigerian society like the South African society is in denial where rape is concerned?”  I asked.
“Yes!”  They replied.
I could hear more female voices than male voices.
How I wished that Carrie Shelver of People Opposing Woman Abuse (Powa) had joined me from South Africa.  She sent me her findings and I decided to quote her verbatim.
“A woman is raped in South Africa every 26 seconds.  Only one in nine rapes that takes place in South Africa is ever reported - out of the reported cases, only 7% lead to a conviction," Carrie Shelver said.

“I wonder how many cases of rape have gone unreported in Nigeria.”  I said.
“Uncountable!”  The females shouted louder than the males.

“When you become dumb and numb, you have only complicated your trauma.  Because, covering the truth will only worsen your wrath against the predator that brutalized you and violated your chastity.  And as far as I am concerned, you have become implicated as well.  Because, you have allowed the criminal to escape from prosecution."

I waited for the message to be well received before I continued.

“But, how can we report to the police when the Nigerian police officers are rapists themselves?"

I heard grunts and hisses of disgust and disapproval in dismissal of the Nigerian Police.

“Let me read from the report of the Human Rights Watch of how two female pupils were raped by three Nigerian police officers on September 27, 2004."

I could hear a pin drop as the hall became as silent as the Ikoyi cemetery in Lagos.
I began reading the report slowly.

“Rape by the Police
Rape and other forms of sexual violence are cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment that in particular cases rise to the level of torture.  In Enugu, Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed two young women who had been gang-raped by three police officers, including a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP).  They were secondary school students, aged seventeen, and eighteen at the time of the incident.  At around 6.00p.m on September 27, 2004, the girls were walking home when two men in a car stopped and ordered them to enter the vehicle.  When they refused, the men showed them their police identity cards and threatened to flog them with a horsewhip:

We were afraid and pleading with them.  DSP Uttang James said it was too late and that we were stubborn, didn’t we know that he is a police officer.  He said we look like the cultist girls that work for criminals.  He ordered Constable Emmanuel Effiong to open the car and push us inside.  He said if we run away they will shoot us in the leg.  We started screaming.  Uttang said he will teach us a lesson we will never forget.111

The girls were taken to the police detective college on Agbani Road:

Uttang pushed us inside the house and said, “Do you know what I want?  I want co-operation.”  I asked what type of co-operation.  He told me to shut-up and that all he wanted was “bang, bang, bang.” We were so afraid.  We thought we were going to be ritually killed. Uttang brought out a gun, showed us a bullet and said if we make a noise he will kill us. In the first room he asked Effoing to pull off my clothes and told him to sleep with me. Then Effiong raped me. Then Uttang took my friend into the second room at the back of the house.

Uttang [… ] said he was going to drop us at home. He told Effiong to look after us. A few minutes later he came back with another man, Constable Usip Asukwo. I thought he was our helper. Uttang said that Effiong and Asukwo should put a mattress out and each take one of us. That he wanted to watch. Asukwo took out a condom but Uttang took it away. Uttang told him to switch the light on so he could watch it well. They jumped on to us. Uttang flogged our legs, and said we should spread our legs. He then said he was going to do it again, but we cried and Asukwo took pity on us.

At 12.00 midnight Uttang told Asukwo to help him drop us at home. We started on our way but came back to the college because there were armed robbers around. Uttang said he was going to sleep with us again. We cried and said that we would not allow it - only over our dead bodies. Uttang said he would get a gun and kill us. I was raped twice in total, my friend five times. 112

Eventually the girls were taken to Constable Asukwo’s house, where the junior officer tried to apologize for what had happened, claiming DSP Uttang, his superior officer, forced him to have sexual relations with them. He also told them that Uttang had raped other women before. At 6.00a.m, twelve hours after their ordeal had begun, they left Asukwo’s house and walked home.

This case has received significant attention within Nigeria thanks to the efforts of a local human rights organization and the wilingness of the women who were prepared to speak publicly about their ordeal.113 The Enugu based Centre for Victims of Torture and Extra-Judicial Killing (CVEKT) has conducted a tireless campaign to bring the perpetrators to justice, petitioning the police authorities, the federal government, national assembly and the National Human Rights Commission. As a result the police authorities conducted an internal investigation which indicted the officers for rape and abduction. The two police constables have been dismissed from the force while the senior officer was suspended. At the time of writing, all three are in Enugu prison awaiting trial.

In another recent case from Enugu, a fourteen year-old-girl was raped at a police station in November 2004. According to information from a local women’s rights organization, the girl had a dispute with her neighbor, a policewoman, and was accused of stealing an item of clothing worth less than US$2. The dispute lingered and several months later, the fourteen-year-old was arrested and detained at a local police station. During the night a junior police officer restrained the child, tied her hands behind her back and, despite protests from other detainees, allegedly raped her. According to the women’s rights organization, the following morning the matter was brought to the attention of the officer in charge of the station and the girl was released. Perhaps in an effort to show action was being taken, the officer was detained for less than forty-eight hours and then released. However, the policeman alleged to have committed the rape and the policewoman later threatened to charge the girl with stealing so as to intimidate her and her family into silence.

About three weeks after the rape, on the request of the girl and her family, a local women’s rights organization wrote to the head of the police station to complain about the rape. At once the two officers dropped the threat of charging her to court for stealing. Shortly after this, two armed men entered the girl’s house while she was alone at home. Holding a gun to her head, she was forced to swallow four white tablets before they left without saying anything. The girl did not know what the tablets were but did not experience any immediate side effects. Both the family and the women’s organization believe this event was connected to their efforts to publicize the rape and believe the intruders were people working on behalf of the two police officers. After this the family immediately asked the NGO to drop the case and have since moved house out of fear. At this writing, the NGO have not been able re-establish contact with the girl or her family and the police officer who allegedly committed the rape is still at his post. 114

Local women’s rights organizations and the media frequently report cases of sexual violations against girls and women, including molestation, rape and gang rape, by members of the police force across the country.115 It is believed however, that the vast majority of cases go unreported because of the stigma associated with rape and the fear of intimidation and reprisals by the police.116 In 2004, a women’s rights organization in Enugu received six official and thirteen unofficial reports of police rape in the Enugu area. The staff of the organization explained how the victim or one of her relatives reported the sexual violation but insisted that no legal action was taken. According to the organization, “they just want someone to talk to. No-one wants to publicly talk about it or face intimidation.”117 The reluctance to report cases of rape or sexual violence by police means it is extremely rare for action to be taken against the perpetrators.-Human Rights Watch".

I heard them spitting curses on the Nigerian Police.

"So, dogs eat dogs in Nigeria," I said.
"I wonder how many children have been born from unlawful sexual intercourses.  When the victims in fear of the anathema and stigma prefer to bear the trauma in silence and let the evil and wicked rapists go on without prosecution," I added. 

When I finished my paper, many of the students rushed to shake my hands and wanted more information on the consequences of rape and other violent acts against girls and women.  My hosts, Dr. Makinwa Bolajoko and Professor Olatubosun Maja of the Department of Psychology promised to bring me back to the University of Lagos.  But, I wanted to leave for the Muson Centre on the Lagos Island to watch Ijapa, the new opera directed by Professor Laz Ochonma of the Musical Society of Nigeria.

I was about to enter my Prado jeep when I saw her walking briskly from the Oduduwa Hall.  She must have been in my audience. 

"Sweetest!”  I called after her.
She stopped walking.  But she did not respond.  She was backing me.
I shut the door of my jeep and walked to her.
“  Sweetest."
She did not respond or turn around.
I walked around to stand in front of her.
She looked down, avoiding my gaze.
She was wearing a simple blouse and blue denim pants and black shoes with flat soles.  She was holding a black folder containing some books.
She was looking as pretty and sexy as the first time I set my eyes on her three years ago.  And the flashback of that unforgettable night we spent at the Zoo Garden in Calabar crossed my mind repeatedly.  The lyrics of Nat King Cole's classic Unforgettable echoed in my head.
“  Sweetest," I said lovingly, used my right palm to lift up her chin, and held her right hand with my left hand.
I saw the tears trickling from her eyes down to her rosy cheeks.
“  Let me go," she muttered.
“  You have a lot to learn," I said.
"Thank you for washing my dirty linen in public," she said.
I wiped away her tears with my white handkerchief. 
"Open rebuke is better than hidden love - Proverbs 27:5," I said.
"I prefer hidden love," she said.
"He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination-Proverbs 28:9," I said.
"I did not turn away from hearing your words," she said.
"When you reject the truth you are rejecting your salvation," I said.
"I wanted our secrets to be secret," she said.
"He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy- Proverbs 28:13," I said.
She did not say a word.
"Love heals us from all our ills," I said and led her to my jeep.
I opened the door for her and she entered.
I shut the door after seeing that she felt safe in my company.
I played You're Still the One by Shania Twain and smiled at her as I drove out of the campus. 

I took her to the Muson Centre to watch Ijapa and then we went to the Bar Beach to relax in the sunset.
“  I left for the US in 2007.  I went to New York and even had a shrink in Cleveland.  I told him all about our affair.  And he believed me," I said looking into her eyes.
"Are you married now?" She asked.
"Marriage is selfish," I replied.
She chuckled and shook her head.
"When I read your true confessions online and offline, I was annoyed that you were not ashamed to broadcast our bedroom passions to the whole world. But, later, it dawned on me that there was nothing wrong as long as there was nothing to be ashamed of," she said.
"Of course.  It was naive to think I did not love you, because I told the world how much I loved you and how we danced naked locked in our arms and made love for hours," I said.
"And even recalled that I was moaning your name again and again as I climaxed," She said.
“  There is nothing to be ashamed of in love.  Except you lied that you loved me," I said.
She gazed at me as we lay on the Arabian mat.
"I loved you.  But, I was scared," she said. 
"True love overcomes all fears," I said and planted my lips on her lips.
"Abba, please, promise me," She said.
"Yes?”  I answered.
“  Promise me that you will not hurt me again," she said.
“  I have never hurt you.  You only misunderstood me," I said.
“I made an unfortunate mistake," she said.
As I regarded her, I could discern that she was now wiser.  And I cursed the devil that led her astray.
“Remember, we agreed to have a love child and you said two would be great," I reminded her.
She smiled and held me tightly.
"Sweetest, I love you and I will always love you. But you have not told me the truth. True love never lies," I said.
She regarded me lovingly and sighed in resignation.


N.B:
Love Child is based on a true-life story and I will continue to update it as I elicit the truth from the love child herself.

Love Child 2

Dominique Sigaud was in tears the day she broke the bad news to us.
Nigerian hoodlums attacked a French diplomat and his family as they were on their way to the Murtala Muhammad International Airport (MMIA) in Ikeja, Lagos. They raped his beautiful wife and pretty daughter by the roadside and disappeared in the darkness of the night in Oshodi.

"You Nigerians are ashamed to report that you have been raped. And you protect the rapist when you don't report the crime and there is no prosecution and the rapist goes unpunished while the victim lives with the scars and haunted by the nightmares," Dominique said.

Her words rang in my head as I stood before the audience of students in Oduduwa Hall.
They looked up in rapt attention as I delivered my paper on Rape and The Consequences on Women in Nigeria.

"Is the Nigerian society like the South African society is in denial where rape is concerned?" I asked.
"Yes!" They replied.
I could hear more female voices than male voices.
How I wished that Carrie Shelver of People Opposing Woman Abuse (Powa) had joined me from South Africa. She sent me her findings and I decided to quote her verbatim.
"A woman is raped in South Africa every 26 seconds. Only one in nine rapes that takes place in South Africa is ever reported - out of the reported cases, only 7% lead to a conviction," Carrie Shelver said.

"I wonder how many cases of rape have gone unreported in Nigeria?" I said.
"Uncountable!" The females shouted louder than the males.

"When you become dumb and numb, you have only complicated your trauma. Because, covering the truth will only worsen your wrath against the predator that brutalized you and violated your chastity. And as far as I am concerned, you have become implicated as well. Because, you have allowed the criminal to escape from prosecution."

I waited for the message to be well received before I continued.

"But, how can we report to the police when the Nigerian police officers are rapists themselves?"

I heard grunts and hisses of disgust and disapproval in dismissal of the Nigerian Police.

"Let me read from the report of the Human Rights Watch of how two female pupils were raped by three Nigerian police officers on September 27, 2004."

I could hear a pin drop as the hall became as silent as the Ikoyi cemetary in Lagos.

"Rape by the Police
Rape and other forms of sexual violence are cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment that in particular cases rise to the level of torture. In Enugu, Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed two young women who had been gang-raped by three police officers, including a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP). They were both secondary school students, aged seventeen and eighteen at the time of the incident. At around 6.00p.m on September 27, 2004, the girls were walking home when two men in a car stopped and ordered them to enter the vehicle. When they refused, the men showed them their police identity cards and threatened to flog them with a horsewhip:   

We were afraid and pleading with them. DSP Uttang James said it was too late and that we were stubborn, didn’t we know that he is a police man. He said we look like the cultist110 girls that work for criminals. He ordered Constable Emmanuel Effiong to open the car and push us inside. He said if we run away they will shoot us in the leg. We started screaming. Uttang said he will teach us a lesson we will never forget.111

The girls were taken to the police detective college on Agbani Road:

Uttang pushed us inside the house and said, “Do you know what I want? I want co-operation.” I asked what type of co-operation. He told me to shut-up and that all he wanted was “bang, bang, bang.” We were so afraid. We thought we were going to be ritually killed. Uttang brought out a gun, showed us a bullet and said if we make a noise he will kill us. In the first room he asked Effoing to pull off my clothes and told him to sleep with me. Then Effiong raped me. Then Uttang took my friend into the second room at the back of the house.

Uttang [… ] said he was going to drop us at home. He told Effiong to look after us. A few minutes later he came back with another man, Constable Usip Asukwo. I thought he was our helper. Uttang said that Effiong and Asukwo should put a mattress out and each take one of us. That he wanted to watch. Asukwo took out a condom but Uttang took it away. Uttang told him to switch the light on so he could watch it well. They jumped on to us. Uttang flogged our legs, and said we should spread our legs. He then said he was going to do it again, but we cried and Asukwo took pity on us.

At 12.00 midnight Uttang told Asukwo to help him drop us at home. We started on our way but came back to the college because there were armed robbers around. Uttang said he was going to sleep with us again. We cried and said that we would not allow it - only over our dead bodies. Uttang said he would get a gun and kill us. I was raped twice in total, my friend five times. 112

Eventually the girls were taken to Constable Asukwo’s house, where the junior officer tried to apologize for what had happened, claiming DSP Uttang, his superior officer, forced him to have sexual relations with them. He also told them that Uttang had raped other women before. At 6.00a.m, twelve hours after their ordeal had begun, they left Asukwo’s house and walked home.

This case has received significant attention within Nigeria thanks to the efforts of a local human rights organization and the wilingness of the women who were prepared to speak publicly about their ordeal.113 The Enugu based Centre for Victims of Torture and Extra-Judicial Killing (CVEKT) has conducted a tireless campaign to bring the perpetrators to justice, petitioning the police authorities, the federal government, national assembly and the National Human Rights Commission. As a result the police authorities conducted an internal investigation which indicted the officers for rape and abduction. The two police constables have been dismissed from the force while the senior officer was suspended. At the time of writing, all three are in Enugu prison awaiting trial.

In another recent case from Enugu, a fourteen year-old-girl was raped at a police station in November 2004. According to information from a local women’s rights organization, the girl had a dispute with her neighbor, a policewoman, and was accused of stealing an item of clothing worth less than US$2. The dispute lingered and several months later, the fourteen-year-old was arrested and detained at a local police station. During the night a junior police officer restrained the child, tied her hands behind her back and, despite protests from other detainees, allegedly raped her. According to the women’s rights organization, the following morning the matter was brought to the attention of the officer in charge of the station and the girl was released. Perhaps in an effort to show action was being taken, the officer was detained for less than forty-eight hours and then released. However, the policeman alleged to have committed the rape and the policewoman later threatened to charge the girl with stealing so as to intimidate her and her family into silence.

About three weeks after the rape, on the request of the girl and her family, a local women’s rights organization wrote to the head of the police station to complain about the rape. At once the two officers dropped the threat of charging her to court for stealing. Shortly after this, two armed men entered the girl’s house while she was alone at home. Holding a gun to her head, she was forced to swallow four white tablets before they left without saying anything. The girl did not know what the tablets were but did not experience any immediate side effects. Both the family and the women’s organization believe this event was connected to their efforts to publicize the rape and believe the intruders were people working on behalf of the two police officers. After this the family immediately asked the NGO to drop the case and have since moved house out of fear. At this writing, the NGO have not been able re-establish contact with the girl or her family and the police officer who allegedly committed the rape is still at his post. 114

Local women’s rights organizations and the media frequently report cases of sexual violations against girls and women, including molestation, rape and gang rape, by members of the police force across the country.115 It is believed however, that the vast majority of cases go unreported because of the stigma associated with rape and the fear of intimidation and reprisals by the police.116 In 2004, a women’s rights organization in Enugu received six official and thirteen unofficial reports of police rape in the Enugu area. The staff of the organization explained how the victim or one of her relatives reported the sexual violation but insisted that no legal action was taken. According to the organization, “they just want someone to talk to. No-one wants to publicly talk about it or face intimidation.”117 The reluctance to report cases of rape or sexual violence by police means it is extremely rare for action to be taken against the perpetrators.
Human Rights Watch".

I heard them spitting curses on the Nigerian Police.

"So, dogs eat dogs in Nigeria," I said.
"I wonder how many children have been born from unlawful sexual intercourses? When the victims in fear of the anathema and stigma prefer to bear the trauma in silence and let the evil and wicked rapists go on without prosecution," I added.

When I finished my paper, many of the students rushed to shake my hands and wanted more information on the consequences of rape and other violent acts against girls and women. My hosts, Dr. Makinwa Bolajoko and Professor Olatubosun Maja of the Department of Psychology promised to bring me back to the University of Lagos. But, I wanted to leave for the Muson Centre on the Lagos Island to watch Ijapa, the new opera directed by Professor Laz Ochonma of the Musical Society of Nigeria.

I was about to enter my[i] Prado[/i] jeep when I saw her walking briskly from the Oduduwa Hall. She must have been in my audience.

"Sweetest!" I called after her.
She stopped walking. But she did not respond. She was backing me.
I shut the door of my jeep and walked to her.
"Sweetest."
She did not respond or turn around.
I walked around to stand infront of her.
She looked down, avoiding my gaze.
"Sweetest," I said lovingly and used my right palm to lift up her chin and held her right hand with my left hand.
I saw the tears trickling from her eyes down to her rosy cheeks.
"Let me go," she muttered.
"You have a lot to learn," I said.
"Thank you for washing my dirty linen in public," she said.
I wiped away her tears with my white handkerchief.
"Open rebuke is better than hidden love - Proverbs 27:5," I said.
"I prefer hidden love," she said.
"He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination-Proverbs 28:9," I said.
"I did not turn away from hearing your words," she said.
"When you reject the truth you are rejecting your salvation," I said.
"I wanted our secrets to be secret," she said.
"He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy- Proverbs 28:13," I said.
She did not say a word.
"Love heals us from all our ills," I said and led her to my jeep.
I opened the door for her and she entered.
I shut the door after seeing that she felt safe in my company.
I played You're Still the One by Shania Twain and smiled at her as I drove out of the campus.

Orikinla:

"I wonder how many children have been born from unlawful sexual intercourses?

Is this the love child? Or the one that was gotten rid of in part I

Uzygirl,
The Love Child is the young female student called Sweetest by the narrator.

Love Child is a full length novel based on a true story and I will keep on developing it.

Another Love Child I knew stabbed and wounded a popular Nigerian newscaster who works for the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) in Abuja. She said he was trying to harass her whilst she was washing in the kitchen. He denied it and called her a witch. And he is her step-father. Later she got pregnant for my friend and gave birth to her own love child for him. But, she married an older man and now lives in the US with her husband and love child Stephanie.

Love Child (continuation)

I took her to the Muson Centre to watch Ijapa and then we went to the Bar Beach to relax in the sunset.
"I left for the US in 2007. I went to New York and even had a shrink in Cleveland. I told him all about our affair. And he believed me," I said looking into her eyes.
"Are you married now?" She asked.
"Marriage is selfish," I replied.
She chuckled and shook her head.
"When I read your true confessions online and offline, I was annoyed that you were not ashamed to broadcast our bedroom passions to the whole world. But, later, it dawned on me that there was nothing wrong as long as there was nothing to be ashamed of," she said.
"Of course. It was naive to think I did not love you, because I told the world how much I loved you and how we danced naked locked in our arms and made love for hours," I said.
"And even recalled that I was moaning your name again and again as I climaxed," she said.
"There is nothing to be ashamed of in love. Except you lied that you loved me," I said.
She gazed at me as we lay on the Arabian mat.
"I loved you. But, I was scared," she said.
"True love overcomes all fears," I said and planted my lips on her lips.
"Abba, please, promise me," she said.
"Yes?" I answered.
"Promise me that you will not hurt me again," she said.
"I have never hurt you. You only misunderstood me," I said.
"I made an unfortunate mistake," she said.
As I regarded her, I could discern that she was now wiser. And I cursed the devil that led her astray.
"Remember, we agreed to have a love child and you said two would be great," I reminded her.
She smiled and held me tightly.
"Sweetest, I love you and I will always love you," I said.