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“Madam, can you move?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“Put me down.”
“Keep quiet. Breathe.”
“Thank you.”
One day, a pregnant beggar accepted help from a stranger with arms like iron, only to discover that his kindness had begun as a lie.
Amina was the kind of woman Lagos did not notice until she became a problem.
Not because she shouted. Not because she begged loudly. Not because she blocked the road the way some people did when traffic locked up like a stubborn goat. No. Amina’s suffering was the quiet kind—thin, careful, almost invisible.
She sat near the edge of a busy junction in Surulere, close enough for people to see her swollen belly, but far enough that no one could accuse her of disturbing the peace. Her wrapper was old. Her slippers had lost their shape. A nylon bag sat beside her like the last proof that she had once owned a room, a bed, a life.
When she smiled, it looked like a candle trying to survive the wind.
And whenever she placed one hand on her stomach the way she did when the baby kicked, her eyes softened, as if she were apologizing to the child for the world she was bringing him into.
Most people passed.
Some dropped coins without looking. Some looked and dropped nothing. Some looked and hissed, as if poverty were a bad smell that could jump onto them.
But every day, one thing remained constant.
Amina refused to curse the world.
Instead, she spoke softly to her unborn child.
“My baby,” she would whisper, “you will not beg like me. You will stand like a tree. You will eat with dignity. You will laugh without fear.”
The hawkers around her knew her face. The okada riders knew her corner. Even the pure-water boy, Small Seyi, who balanced a tray of sachet water on his head, knew that Amina never asked for more than she needed.
If you gave her bread, she took half.
If you gave her money, she counted it and kept only enough to buy food, then tried to return the rest until people shouted, “Are you mad? Take it!”