There Was A Country

"Lanre! Your phone is ringing!" A young lady who seem to be in her early twenties called out. "please help me check who is calling!" Another female voice came through from the background. "It's your mom!" The young lady who is sitting on the bed said. From the clattering of the plates, it seems Lanre is in the kitchen. While her friend who had informed her that her phone was ringing sat on the bed with a book in her hand tittled "There Was A Country" written by Chinua Achebe, a Nigerian author and poet who is one of the fathers of Nigeria literature and was once a lecturer in one of Nigeria's most prestigious and oldest university, "The University of Nigeria Nsukka". 

"You should have bring it to me! Now the phone has stopped ringing!" Lanre said when she got to the room. "U no sei dat woman go kon de think anoda thing lyk this! U sef ehn!" Lanre said in Nigeria pidgin which can be translated as "You know my mother would become suspicious!" Then the last part being an exclamation. 

"Please don't be angry! It's just that I am totally overwhelmed by this book that I didn't think it wise to drop it, lest I should lose interest". Lanre eyes her friend disapprovingly. "Ify no be so o! Na me and you be roommate when you de do me this kind thing. I no want my mama wahala o!" Lanre said to her friend Ify. It turns out that the both of them are roommates from what Lanre just said. Lanre had told Ify that she shouldn't have done what she did since they were roommates. And that she didn't want to have issues with her mother. 

"Oya sorry na! No vex! I promise not to do something like this again. Meanwhile, why don't you call her back before she begins to think otherwise for real this time?!" Ify suggested. Lanre hissed and took sat on the bed. Then she told Ify too help her go check the food she is cooking while she calls back her mother. She dialled her mother's number and waited for her mother to pick up. Then she immediately greeted her mother. 

"Lanre! Lanre! Why did you not answer the phone when I called the first time?" Her mother attacked her. She did not even reply Lanre's greeting. Lanre frowns. She knew her mother would do this. "Mommy, I was in the kitchen and I left my phone in the room!" Lanre replied. But the mother refused to believe Lanre. She asked her if she was telling the truth and not in a man's house or probably in a hotel room with a man. "Mom! What is that for? You know your Lanre is not like that na! I'm a good girl!" Lanre said to her mother trying to convince her. 

It turns out that her mother has heard over the news about a female student in one of the Universities who had gone out with a man to the hotel and ended up dead. Her eyes were plucked out and her breast cut off. It was a case of ritual.

"Mama! You too de fear! Your Lanre is not like that! I'm a good girl who is always in church. The highest I go is from class to my house, my house to church. I only have a triangular movement. Except I am going to the market to get some foodstuffs. I don't even have a boyfriend!" Lanre said reassuring her mother that she is a good girl. Her mother ended the call after telling her she hoped she was not deceiving her. 

"Lanre! How can you lie to your mother like that? E no do you say you de lie, you decided to use church to lie! You that stopped going to church since first year second semester!" Ify said calling Lanre out for her lies. "What's wrong with you? Don't you know church is the only thing I can use to make my mother to stop bugging me? Babe abeg free me o!" Lanre said telling Ify to leave her alone. "Well I'm not holding you in anyway! Just know that you will have kids one day and if they lie to you, you won't be happy!" Ify said to her friend and roommate Lanre. 

"Oh please spare me that talk! My children no fit! I go just break their bones! Them never born them well if they should lie to me!" Lanre said boasting if her she will treat her children if they should lie to her. "The food don done, this one when you come here so?" Lanre said asking Ify if the food was ready and out of the fire since she has come back into the room. "Yes it is!" Ify said. "Let's go and eat!" Ify added and left the room.