I know there has been stories like this. I know many would blame the female and call her ungrateful. But should love be conditional? I come from a very humble home. My WASSCE results were very good. I was going to be the first person to gain admission into the University in my family. But my fees could not be cartered for. My mother was relentless nonetheless. She wanted her first daughter to break the jinx and to see me through the University. She started appealing for funds at church and we started getting a few donations here and there. All of this halted when a rich man from church told my mother he would sponsor me to school. I was informed about this and my answer was a firm no. I knew his alterior motive. I knew many young ladies have fallen prey to this strategy of later being indebted to these rich men until they had no choice than to marry them.
I would not be another victim. But my family was on my neck. Even my uncles and aunties got involved, begging me to stop being arrogant and accept it. My siblings didn’t make things any easier. They couldn’t understand how I could turn down such an offer. My dad broke his silence on the issue and told me I was his first daughter and I needed to go to the University to encourage my siblings to follow suit. He told me he would never marry off his young daughter to a man in his forties. I didn’t like the arrangement. But I also wanted to further my education. I had wasted so much time in deciding whether to accept the sponsor’s offer that the deadline for admission elapsed. So I waited for the following year and bought KNUST forms and filled it. The admissions came and my name was part of it. There was a lot of joy and jubilation in my family.
When I entered the University, I had no contact with my sponsor. I sent my parents the amount I was supposed to pay for the year, and they told him. So he would send us the money and I would pay during the vacation. I met him only about twice at church when I was on vacation and I expressed my gratitude towards him. But that was all. Now, I have completed school. I’m an NSS personnel and my parents have told me out of the blue that I am getting married soon. I thought they were joking. But my heart skipped a beat when I saw the seriousness in their eyes. My sponsor was still a bachelor in his forties. He is wealthy and he is willing to employ me in one of his companies after national service. According to my parents, I was the first child and I needed to make sacrifices for my two younger siblings. They also have to go to the university and marrying such a man will secure their place there. My parents were using me as a ticket to wealth. I was going to end their poverty. I was the sacrifice.
To think that I trusted my dad when he told me that he would not marry me off to my sponsor. I should have known. This is the price I have paid for my degree. I sacrificed the love I had for my boyfriend and chose loyalty to my family. I have broken up with my boyfriend. My wedding to my sponsor is coming off soon. I have become a statistic. I am now part of the young girls who are forced to marry their sponsors. Society, especially the men call us names. They think we were chasing money. But I just wanted to complete the University, is there a crime in that? Is it a crime to have sponsorship to enroll in the University? Should the girls always be blamed for this kind of deceptive trap? I hope that other young girls take a cue from this and reject sponsorship offers from older men. In the end, they pay with their happiness.