I Paid Someone to Write My WAEC Eight Years Ago. My Father Still Thinks I Am a First Class Graduate.

This happened in 2016, Enugu. I was in SS3 at a public school where teachers no longer cared. My father had sold his okada to pay my school fees that term. The pressure was crushing me , I could not even look at a textbook without my chest tightening.

My friend Chibuzor introduced me to a man at New Artisan who ran a 'WAEC solution centre.' I paid him 35,000 naira , money I collected from my mother's younger sister by telling her it was for extra lesson fees. On exam day, he sat in the hall with my name on his answer booklet. I sat at the back writing nothing, just watching him finish.

When the results came out, I had 8 credits including Maths and English. My father cried. He called his brothers, told them his son was going to university. I stood there smiling while my stomach churned.

I went to a private university in Anambra , the kind where you can pay your way through. My father sold another okada. I graduated with a second class lower. He still tells people I was first class. I have never corrected him. Last year, when he asked me to help my younger sister with her WAEC registration, I paid for her to write it properly. She failed three subjects. I did not know whether to laugh or cry.

The lie I told has grown legs. It walks around our family compound, shaking hands with relatives. I cannot kill it now without killing my father's heart. Some truths are heavier than the lies they replace.