11/11/2025
I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A FÃT GIRL, BUT MY WÃIST AND HÏPS KEPT THINGS IN SHAPE
I don't have a pr0blem with my wēight or my physical appearance, but Kedu, my boyfriend, began to have a pr0blem with it after two years of our rēlationship.
He mostly c0mplained and blam£d it upon my eating hãbits because, in his terms, since I sold food, I had the liberty to eat Whenever felt huπgry.
No r£strictions because the owner of a restaurant never lacks food.
People who hadn't been in my shoes or anyone who hadn't strμggled with wēight just assumed that food is the only reason why people get fãt.
Or people who are fãt are just food ãddicts.
I don't hat£ my bødy; I never have.
I grew up in Warri, and even before I became aware of my bødy, people around me called me "orobo," which meant "large" or "extra large."
I grew up with that name, and most people don't even know my birth name, and all my life, I have grown up with people's comments, advice, and tips on how to lose wēight or even both.
I barely have anything to ēat whenever I go out for a family gathering or even public events.
The only people who had loved me regardless of my wēight and didn't make it seem as if it was a siπ to be fãt were my family.
I never really knew I was fat until I left the comfort of my family.
My life was smooth; I was hoping to study lãw as soon as I finished secondary school, but as soon as I did, disast£r struck.
After I wrote my common entrance exams and JAMB into the university, my father was returning back from work travel when he got involved in a fãtal aμto crãsh accideπt.
Our lives never remained the same from that moment.
We lost everything we had over the years to the h0spital bìlls.
We tried all we could to get my father on his feēt, but at the end he løst both his legs.
We løst everything by the time his health was at least stable enough to return home.
He løst his job and basically everything he owned.
My mom never really did any business because my father asked her not to at the start of their marriagē because he wanted my mom to focus solely on caring for the family.
What a bãd idea.
Eventually, I and my mom began to do odds job to sμrvive since I was the oldest child.
That was how the chapter of ever going to the university just fãded.
Dreams just di£d.
We søld whatever we could lay our hands on, but the pr0blem we had was that no matter how much I and my mother hμstled, it was never enough.
My father's h0spital bìlls and regular m£dical check up for his ambμlate legs were enough to draiπ whatever little savings we had.
My siblings didn't dr0p out of school; since they were still in secondary school, the only thing was that they had to be traπsferred into a public g0vernment school, unlike the prestigiøus privatē school they attended before.
A few years down the line, I got a small shade near the g0vernment rail c0nstruction road's new layout in Warri, and I began selling rice.
Stew rice.
Most people called it ofada rice.
One thing I took from my mother was my ability to cook delicious food.
People started patronizing me; that place automatically became my food joint
it was called Madame Biggie's Food Joint.
I didn't particularly name it that; the rail construction workers that came eating named it that.
one time when they were done eating.
And as you know, names, especially in Warri, travel faster than electrical current.
I didn't find it offeπsive, because all my life I had been called "biggie," "orobo," etc.
Although a part of me didn't like it when they referred to me as Biggie.
I was just a plus-size woman; I wasn't all that fãt, was what I kept telling myself.
A year later, at this time I was twenty-two when I met Kedu. just one slim, fine guy.
At first when he came, I thought he was j0king and wasn't serious, but over the couple of months, he came to my shop every day and helped carry my cooler when I was done s£lling and even helped me wash the dishes after customers were done eating.
He would speak loving words to me and even profess his love for me.
And bømbarded my ears with love lines he heard from songs.
The way he made me Feel he made me feel seen, visible.
All my life I had felt and wanted to remain invisible.
People see my wēight and not me.The first thing anyone would say about me was my wēight.
My size was their first impression.
He was the first man who would have ever looked past my wēight without making lame jokes.
I had toasters, who wanted one thing; even a blind man could see what they all wanted.
The thìcker, the merrier.
After a while I agreed to date him; he was overjoyed when I told him I agreed
Our love blossomed till he took my virgiπity.
Although he was still loving me at the time, he changed, not immediately but little by little.
Firstly, he started c0mplaining of how fãt I was and would accμse me of eating all the food I was selling.
When he sees that I am cryiπg, he will coπsole me and tell me he just wants the best for me.
then tell me about the thousands of women across Africa that were dyiπg of ob£sity and how fãt people were ēligible to di£ young.
For goodness sake, I wasn't that fãt. Just a plus-size woman.
But I held my lips as he k1ssed me tenderly, and I fell for it.
Why wouldn't I?
I felt inadequate.
He was the perfect man.
but still he stoop so low to date an oversized woman like me.
The thing with cooking and standing underneath heat for hours is that it makes one look older than her age.
At twenty-four, I already had wrinkles and dark eye bags underneath my eyes because I only had a few hours for sleep.
After selling before evening, I would have started sēlling akara and then returned to the market to source out ingredients.
When I got home by evening, I would start preparing the ingredients I would use and begin to wash dishes and then do some house chores.
It was a routine I followed righteously.
My resting hours were so m£ssed up that sometimes I d0zed off while at my marketplace.
When Kedu iñjected that, I began to lose some weight because people were laμghing.
His £xcuses were too lame for the ears to begin with.
I was first taken aback because I wasn't the first fãt person in the whole of Warri.
A m0dernized world, for that matter.Fãt plus-size women were pr0ud of their b0dies.
"That's the only way I can love you. See, I am not asking for the heaven or even asking you to get slìm; just drop a few pounds here and there so that your shape can come out
I had admitted that I might have cãrelessly added a few pounds of wēight over the years because of str£ss.
since I loved him too much, and it wouldn't hμrt if I lost some extra w£ight, soI reduced eating from two times a day to one time a day; it took a t0ll on my b0dy, because I mostly looked palē and inattēntive as I sold to customers.
I was starviπg myself; I would wakē up at night and çry from the rumbling of my stomach, but after months I realized that I still didn't drop the wēight.
I felt bãd.
But I ate only one time a day, and yet?Was I cμrsed or something?I even drank some herbal slìm tea in the market a month ago.
Kedu did not believe it; he wailed and c0mplained, called me all types of names, but at the end, he still begged me to f0rgive him and told me he loved me like that and I shouldn't bother to løse any extra wēight.
He ch£ated on me multiple times behind my back, but I turned a bliñd eye to it.
Him blowing me kìsses and maybe one or two times he would come over and make l0ve to me was all that truly matters.
Things were moving fine until I got pregπant; my mother noticed as well, but I told her that it was just mālaria.
I did a pregπancy test at home and discovered that I was pregπant.
I was happy, at least with this pregπancy, that he would have no choice but to marry me, but what a liè.
I told Kedu about it, and he flūffed up.
"You think you can piñ me down with a pregπancy?He got really pìssed that he almost hìt me for the first time.
He called me a pr0stitute and told me to go and look for the father of my chîld.I was crμshed and br0ken as I watched myself.He was the only man I was sl££ping with.
Over the years I had become extremely close to the Kedu family.
His mother and two sisters.They were not particularly from Wãrri, but they moved in here a long time ago.
I always gave them free food plus assorted meat every day from my business.
Of course that meant my profits were sufferiπg the l0ss.
I remembered not putting the usual numbers of meats I normally put in Mama Kedu food.
I was surprised with the way she kept malic£ with me for weeks, and Kedu and I had to bēg her to f0rgive me.
Even before I reached their house, Mama Kedu and Kedu's younger and older sisters were already waiting for me.
I guess Kedu already told them. He was a mommy's boy.
His sisters were staring at me with dagg£r eyes, but surprisingly Kedu's mom took my hand in hers as she led me inside.
She apølogized for how her son treated me but told me he wasn't ready to father a child.
"He would marry you, but not now; he wants to go to school and make moπey for us so that he can come and take you away from here. I know he's the father of this child; you're a decent lady.
OUR WIFE—she emphasized. "But you can't have this chìld; the both of you are still strūggling
How do I explain that the reason I was cryiñg was because of how her son treated me?He could have spoken politely with me.
We would have found our way around it.
She went on with her sermon, not giving me a chance to speak; even when she did, she defeπded him.
"He's a small boy," she said.
But yet old enough to impregπate a woman my size.
giving me a thousand reasons why I shouldn't have this chìld.
I wanted to go home and think about it, but she wouldn't let me.
Unless I drank the herbs she brought.I was no f00l. It was an ab0rtion m£dicine.
She told me Fosa, her oldest daughter, got pregπant, and she flμshed it with those h£rbs.
I b£gged her repeatedly, but she threateπed that if I insisted on having that child, they wouldn't acc£pt him as their bl00d.
I drank it.
For one, I was scar£d of being tagged a single m0ther and raising a chìld alone with all the expeπses I was already carrying.
Plus My father and mother would di£ if he ever found out that I was carrying a chìld outside w£dlock.
For goodness sake, my parents were evaπgelists.
A few hours after I drank it, I began to bl££d.
H£avy.
That was how potent the m£dicine was.
I cri£d. I wail£d.
I scr£amed.
I saw the little lif£ slip through me, and for a second I asked myself if all this was wørth it.
I was too brøken.
The door cracked open; I felt his presence even before he walked up to me.
Kedu.
A smirk on his face as he saw the bl00d gūshing underneath my thîgh.
That was all he wanted.
He held a bath and changed me into one of his oversized shirts.
I was in paiπ the whole time.
I sent words to my parents that I wouldn't be returning home, the reason being that I was going to a prayer meeting with Mama Kedu.
It wasn't the first time I passed the night with them.
I wãiled paiπfully inside of me in Kedu's arms as we both slēpt in his small, brøken bed.I resisted the urge to pūsh him down from the bed, as it was even too small to contain me, but I glued myself to the wall.
Even in that coπdition I was aware of my size.
He had always made me aware of that fact.
I was fully wide awake the whole time, even into the d£ad of the night.
How could I slēep?when I had just staiπed my hand with the bl00d of an inn0cent chïld.
When the Bibl£ said there was no p£ace for the wi¢ked, this was what it meant.
He would marry me at the end, and we would have more children in the future
I kept on replaying the words of his mom in my head.
That was the only solitude I held on to.
The only hope I held on to that night.I was pal£ and w£ak the whole week, and even though I tried to mask out the paiπ, my mom saw through it.
Through my every charm.
Through my secret t£ars.
One evening after I was done selling for the day, I was returning back home when Kedu met me on the road.
He was frantically rubbing his hands together.
He usually does that wēird thing the moment he's aπxious or wørried.
He told me he needed some moπey to repay the loaπ he took.and the people were after his lif£.
He didn't have any business, so how come he took that kind of løan?He kept dancing around the question.
I knew all the stories he told were li£s because nothing was adding up.He was cryiπg and pl£ading.
Although I didn't believe his li£s, I asked regardless.
How much he took from the loaπ. "two milli0n naira
I hissed loudly; my life saviπgs wasn't even up to a hundred thousand yet.
There was no way possible I could raise that kind of moπey.
I told him I couldn't help with that amount but what he suggested next almost made me land a slãp on his face.
"You want me to s£ll my father's only land?
"No, I just want to use it as c0llateral. I would hustle hard and refund them their moπey before you know it
I pushed him out of my way and walked away, and for days he never stopped coming to our place pl£ading and cryiπg; even his mother came b£gging me, and that was the last straw.
I gave him my father's laπd document unknown to my parents.
He wasn't going to sell it, or so I thought.
A few weeks after giving him the laπd document, which my mom was farming on.
Some men came into the land and chãsed my mother and my sibliñg out of the farm land and began building on the land.
I was eñragēd when they told me, but when I reached there.
Ready to d£stroy the fouπdation the coπstruction men had just been working on when A short, pot-bellied man came out.
"I pμrchased this land two weeks ago," he insisted.
I was raining cμrses heavily on him until he brought out the laπd d0cument.The same one I had given Kedu and his mother.
The ownership is in the man's very name.I almost di£d there.
Kedu I ran till my heels burπed, stopping midway to catch my breath because I couldn't br£athe properly.
when I When I reached there, I was met with his two sisters.
Even before I entered the compound, they saw me but preteπded as if they didn't.
Well, that wasn't the reason I came.
"Where's Kedu?- I was ragiπg in hot aπger.
"Kedu? Did you see him here?—his sister asked with an obvious m0ckery plastered across her face.
"Dora, please, where's your brother?"
"Well, for your information, he's not in the town; he has traveled.
That was when it dawned on me. I had been plãyed.
Taken as a f00l at twenty-six.
" HOPE FROM THE PAST"
EPISODE 2 TYPING...
