This story is about a beautiful lady from a rich home who was very unlucky with men wooing her so she decided to relegate herself. Through the relegation, she became a maid for another rich family who later married their son.
AlJannah Adedamola Sanni, a cerebral writer in Lagos state, Nigeria puts her thoughts into paper to explain how the beautiful rich lady made her dream come true.
The Happy Ending of Hiqmah Ọmọbẹwaji Ọlaolu, The Best Graduating Student of Gas and Petroleum Engineering Ever Since The Existence of The University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
Writer: AlJannah Adedamola Sanni
Hiqma Ọmọbẹwaji Ọlaolu, a thirty-five year old lady who works as a house help for the Jagunmolu family; father, Naseer, mother, Qiyama and son, forty year old Abil who live in Ẹdẹ, Ọṣun before Abil moved to Zaria. Hiqma lost her parents, Muhammad and Qadeejah to an auto accident when they were coming back from Ibadan on their way back to Lagos where they went to check on one of Muhammad’s paternal uncle when Hiqma was thirteen years old. Before her parents’ death, Muhammad was an oil mogul who owned an oil refinery, MuhỌla Gas and Energy situated in Festac, Lagos State while Qadeejah was a renowned lawyer in Nigeria because she was the youngest female lawyer the country would ever have and she became a lawyer at twenty-one years old.
As if they had known they would be dying soon, Muhammad and Qadeejah left Hiqma all their properties; ten million naira, five houses (three in Lagos; one in Victoria Island, one in GRA and the last house in Lagos is in Banana Island, one in Ibadan and the last in Abuja) and five cars, but they put the clause that she must get them when she is twenty-one years old or is about to get married. The properties are under the care of her father’s only brother, Barrister AbdurRahman. AbdurRahman tells Hiqma the clause on the will so as to not look like a betrayer and cheat.
A month after her parents’ demise, Barrister AbdurRahman becomes her caregiver and he gets assistance from his wife, Doctor Rahmatullah. Rahman has a son, fourteen years old AbdurRaheem. Barrister never maltreats Hiqma because his brother, Muhammad was a very nice man and was also his backbone as he stopped schooling since they lost their parents a day to AbdurRahman’s tenth birthday and Muhammad was sixteen ten years old so AbdurRahman can be a graduate since and AbdurRahman feels like his niece should and must not suffer so he sends her to AbdurRaheem’s school, Crescent Schools where she starts from JSS3, while AbdurRaheem is in SSS1 where he is the HeadBoy of the school.
Two years later, Hiqma sits for the WAEC and UTME examinations which she aces, she chooses the University of Ibadan as her choice of university and Gas and Petroleum Engineering as her course and this is the same year that AbdurRaheem begins university too but he attends the University of Lagos as a Chemical Engineering undergraduate. Two years later, she finishes university with First Class and as the Best Student in the Engineering Department of the school and of her set (6.97 out of 7.00) while AbdurRaheem graduates with 4.97 out of 5.00. Few months after the graduation, Hiqma becomes the internet sensation due to no female ever having a First Class not to talk of that GPA in Gas and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Ibadan since its establishment in the year 1948 which gets eighty-nine thousand likes, one hundred thousand commentaries, and one hundred and fifty thousand shares on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, WhatsApp when totaled.
AbdurRaheem and Hiqma serve in Ondo State where women bombard AbdurRaheem because of his handsome looks. Hiqma, on the other hand, was never approached by any man even in the university till now. Eleven months later, the corpers have done their Passing Out Parade and AbdurRaheem is about to marry his girlfriend, Hassanah Bello, a Chemical Engineering graduate of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka who he meets at his Place of Primary Assignment.
Seeing that men do not approach her, Hiqma decides to go to Ẹdẹ, where her maternal grandmother, Mama Kadijah as she is popular known lives. Mama Kadijah sells fruits on the street of Owode-Ẹdẹ. One day as she is helping her grandmother to sell fruits, a woman approaches her who happens to be Mrs. Qiyama Jagunmolu, thinks she is an impoverished girl with the way she is dressed, and because of that, Qiyama mentions that she needs a maid which Hiqma agrees to do. Not long after does Mama Kadijah come to the shop, seeing what Qiyama says, Mama wants to say something but Hiqma eyes Mama to not saying anything and that is exactly what grandma does.
When they get home, Hiqma tells Mama that she came to the village to know the state and other wonderful places, to which Mama agrees that she should become the maid of the Jagunmolus. When asked her name, Hiqma tells Mrs. Jagunmolu her name is Shaki Ikudaisi, and when Mr. Jagunmolu comes home from work, Mrs. Jagunmolu introduces Hiqma as their house maid while Mr. Jagunmolu looks at her scornfully because he knows his wife is too lazy. The following day, Mrs. Jagunmolu overuses Hiqma that she (Mrs. Jagunmolu) does nothing in the house and Mr. Jagunmolu adds more salt because he always makes her do the jobs of the gatekeeper and gardener, yet they treat her badly. The Jagunmolu couple do not know that Hiqma has made history because they are not technologically-savvy.
The Sunday of the following week, Abil arrives from the United Kingdom where he was for a decade where he was studying as an undergraduate of Aerospace Engineering which he had 3.95 out of 4.00. As Abil comes back, Hiqma is the first person he sees, and some minutes later, she is being introduced as the house help whose name is Shaki Ikudaisi. Seeing her makes Abil have butterflies in his stomach because he has never seen a beautiful lady as Hiqma. Two weeks later, Abil tries to become close to Hiqma, but his parents talk him out of it saying that a rich kid and prince like himself should not be seen or mingling with a pauper to which Abil tells them that the way a child is birthed is the same as the way a slave was born.
Naseer and Qiyama try to dissuade Abil from interacting with Hiqma but the plan doesn’t work, instead his love for her intensifies. Whenever he goes out, he tries to take her along which becomes a hassle with himself and his parents as Hiqma is always told to do chores every time but whenever he can’t take her along, he buys her things. One day, Abil, not knowing that it is Hiqma’s birthday, buys her a sketch pad, sets of coloring pencils, and a full set of jewelry. Seeing them surprises Hiqma as how Abil knows what she loves, her skills as well as her birthday which she doesn’t ask him. A year later, seeing as his parents treat Hiqma makes him uncomfortable that he moves out of their house taking Hiqma with him which the latter resist but he tells her that she has to come with him and seeing his rude and harsh tone, she follows him.
It happens that Abil finds a job at the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology, Zaria. Because the love he has for Hiqma is intense, he asks her about her background; family and educational which she tells him that she is an orphan (which is true) and since her parents died when she was twelve years old (which is also true), she could not go back to school because she lived with her poor maternal grandmother in Ẹdẹ who she always assisted (which is a lie). Hearing that, Abil pities her that he promises to teach her how to read and write but she always dodges when it is time for him to teach her. Five months later, not caring that she is unlettered, Abil decides to marry her that he tells his parents who object to the union but somehow Mrs. Jagunmolu’s heart softens, so she convinces her husband who also agrees and that is how they start planning the wedding between Abil and Hiqma. The following day, Hiqma asks Abil how he knows her skills and birthday to which he gets amazed until she brings up the sets of gifts she received, he tells her that he just felt like buying those things on that day, and that is how Abil knows her skills and birthday.
Two months after Abil and Hiqma become man and wife, Abil goes to Lagos to visit his secondary school best friend, Usman Abubakr who works at Muhammad’s oil refinery to visit him as an oil and gas engineer. Five minutes later, a call from Hiqma comes through his phone, but Abil is not available to pick but Usman and Abil trusting each other with their gadgets makes Usman pick the phone which unfortunately misses. Abil makes Hiqma his phone’s display picture, and seeing Hiqma on his friend’s phone surprises him. When Abil comes back from the bathroom that he went to, Usman asks him how he knows Hiqma. Abil tells him that she was his parents’ housemaid but now she is his wife.
Hearing that from Abil doesn’t make Usman believe that he said how can the daughter of the renowned and youngest female lawyer ever in Nigeria and his boss, as he heard from the old workers in his place of employment degrade herself to the lowest of levels but Abil doesn’t believe him. Usman even tells her that her name is Hiqma Ọmọbẹwaji Ọlaolu, and he further tells him that she is a First Class graduate with a 6.97 out of 7.00 due to the University of Ibadan using a 7 point as their GPA and the Best Gas and Petroleum Engineering Student of the Engineering Department of the University of Ibadan since the school was established in the year 1948. Usman tells Abil to mention Muhammad and Qadeejah Ọlaolu to her, and if she denies, then she is not their daughter but a lookalike. Usman goes further to inform him that she made the news as at the time she graduated, and when Abil searches her name indeed, the news of her making the history steers at him in the eyes.
When he gets home, he doesn’t even wait to be greeted by Hiqma before he calls out her parents’ name; Muhammad and Qadeejah Ọlaolu, which she pretends not to know of or hear those names before. Seeing that she is being pretentious, he calls her Hiqma Ọlaolu which she pretends not to have heard that name also. Seeing that she is pretending, he searches her name and shows her, which she becomes angry at herself for forgetting she has made the news. Knowing that her track was not covered, she tells Abil the whole truth which is that men have never asked her out not to talk of saying they want to marry her, so she devised the plan to come stay with her maternal grandmother where she would lay low to see if a man would come to ask her out and as God would have it, she was seen by his mother who took her for a poor lady which made her employ her as a maid and when she first saw him, she had fallen in love with him but she thought he was like the other men, but when he asked her out, she got happy which made her know she is not disgusting to men.
Abil pities her after hearing her ordeal. The Friday of the following week, Abil and Hiqma travel to Ẹdẹ to see his parents. The afternoon of the following day, Saturday, Abil informs his parents of Hiqma’s real identity which they do not believe despite mentioning Muhammad and Qadeejah Ọlaolu. What makes them believe their son is when he shows them the picture of Hiqma making history, seeing the lady’s picture on the newspaper he bought from Zaria knowing his parents might not believe him and that of Hiqma makes them believe. After getting to know Hiqma for her real self, Mr. and Mrs. Jagunmolu apologize for how they treated her which Hiqma forgives them and Hiqma tells her parents-in-law the reason why she did what she did and they also pity her.
The following month, Hiqma takes Abil to her uncle, AbdurRahman where she introduces Abil as her husband and immediately, uncle hands her the will her parents willed her. Two years to Hiqma going to see her uncle, her cousin, AbdurRaheem and his wife had traveled to the United Kingdom where they are working as Biogas & Biomethane Chemical Engineers for GHD located at Newcastle, United Kingdom and a year after going to see AbdurRahman, AbdurRaheem and his wife welcome a daughter, Zainab, and six months later, Abil and Hiqma welcome a son, AbdulManar. Few months after the birth of AbdulManar, Hiqma travels with her husband to the United Kingdom where she puts in for her Doctorate degree at Oxford University, while she hires Usman as the Head of the Oil and Gas Department through Abil talking to her about Usman and how close they are. Five years later, Hiqmah makes the same history as that of the University of Ibadan and because of this, Oxford University offers her a Professorship role.
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