by Moyo Fabiyi

About two decades ago or more, it was fashionable for wealthy Muslim women to aspire to perform the holy pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina when they were heavily pregnant. That time, it was prestigious to deliver a baby in Saudi Arabia during hajj rites. The baby automatically becomes an Alhaji or Alhaja at birth. But the Saudi authorities later banned pregnant woman, the aged and those not physically fit from undertaking the rigours of performance.

Before the ban, pregnant woman and others who had health or physical challenges died in their scores.
However, the direct opposite of this scenario was to be the experience of a Lagos housewife, Fasilat Yusuf, who was about to put to bed when an Ikeja magistrates’ court threatened to send her to Kirikiri prison Apapa, if she failed to pay a N70,000 loan she took from her erstwhile neighbour, Sunday Shobowale.

Explaining to this magazine later how she got entangled in the debt web, Fasilat, who is in her twenties, said she was a member of Esusu, a daily, week or monthly contribution savings scheme collected in rotation by neighbours. Esusu has an age-long history deeply rooted in Yoruba culture. Individuals even floated Esusu firms.

She narrated: “Unfortunately, the contribution crashed. By then I had N70,000 given to me piece-meal. I was to give the money to Sunday. But I could not do so.”

Along the line, Fasilat said, her younger sister was in the hospital to deliver a baby by Caesarian section. The operation, according to her, gulped the bulk of the N70,000 loan, and failure to pay up later made her a guest at Kirikiri prison for three days before her bail was perfected.

When the case was mentioned on 19 May, the presiding chief magistrate, Mr. Tajudeen A. Elias, wanted to know if there was any progress on the repayment of the loan. When he was told that no payment had been made, Elias threatened to send the defendant to prison if she failed to pay something substantial that day.

In the dock, Fasilat knelt down, wept profusely, begging, “Please sir, I don’t want to deliver my baby in prison. Have mercy on me. I hope to repay the loan as soon as possible, after I might have given birth and I start working.”

But Elias replied: “They have good facilities there. The court has been lenieent enough with you. It’s almost two years you incurred the debt. The case has been in court since last year. And you have not paid a kobo since you were brought to court.”

Temporary relief came the way of the defendant, however, before the court rose that day when her mother rushed into the courtroom with her lawye. An undertaking was written, which Fasilat signed pledging to pay a substantial part of the money within a short time. The report of the payment was to be reported to the court at the next adjourned date on 30 June, 2014.

The trial was reported at the crime watch page of P.M.News on 4 June 2014, captioned: Don’t Let Me Give Birth In Prison – Pregnant woman Begs Court.”

Moved by the woman’s plight and the stigma Yoruba culture attaches to prison, a kind Nigerian who read the story called on phone Mr. Bayo Onanuga, the Managing Director of Independent Communications Network Limited, publishers of TheNEWS and P.M.NEWS titles, to inform him of his intention to settle the N70,000 debt the woman incurred without any strings attached.

The kind Nigerian later told P.M.NEWS correspondent in his Ikoyi office that he did not want his name mentioned in the press. All he wanted was that the woman did not deliver her baby in prison. He instructed that the money be given to the pregnant woman to pay the owner instantly for her to be off the hook.

When Fasilat heard the good news though a phone call from the prosecutor, Inspector Rachael Williams, she was joyous. Her joy was doubled because she delivered safely on Saturday, 7 June 2014 in the hospital where she had earlier registered. Early on Monday morning, she was in the court with her two-day-old baby in company of one of her sisters. The complainant, Sunday Shobowale, an artisan, was contacted on phone. From his Mongoro, Agege area workshop, he dashed to Abule Egba to collect the money. The prosecutor, Inspector Willaims, collected a letter of withdrawal from the complainant, who was also made to sign a letter that he had collected his money. All the documents were kept in the case file for the record.

When the settlement was reported to the trial chief magistrate, Mr. Elias, he raised no objection. But the parties, he said, would have to appear in the court again on 30 June, when the development would be made public in the open court.

When the debt payment was completed, Fasilat prayed endlessly for the donor, stressing that what pained her most was that she did not spend a kobo out of the N70,000 on herself; not even on food to eat. Before her last appearance in court, she disclosed, she had approached a microfinance bank in Abule Egba, Lagos to assist her with a loan to offset the debt. But the bank’s officials said they could not give the loan to her because she was pregnant; that she would have to wait until after deliverng her baby, when she could work to repay the loan. So she was to wait for a few months.

Meanwhile, her husband, Kazeem Yusuf, has returned from Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, where he was working as an artisan, to welcome his baby boy and to prepare for the christening.