27/06/2024
To Read, Very informative Life story.
Dear Sir, please post my story too, I just want people to learn from my story. I have been reading the story you post, and although I haven’t commented, I read all the comments and I think I need to also say my story for people to learn from it.
I will start with my background, I came from a very poor family in Ekiti State, I finished secondary school in 2013 since my parents couldn’t afford to send me to higher institutions, they now sent me to my mother's junior brother in Lagos. When I got to Lagos, he gave me to a woman who sells food near the Airport Hotel in Ikeja to help her with daily sales and that after one year, she would support me and sponsor me in any tertiary school. So I started working with my madam in 2013 and normally I am a very good cook, my madam noticed this and she now makes sure that I am the only one cooking the food every day apart from my free day when she does the cooking herself, Normally we worked 6 days a week and the 7th day which is your free day you will need to come as early as 6.00 O clock in the morning to go to the market as everything we cook are always very fresh. Meanwhile, I have a boyfriend then Olayinka. He was the person who deflowered me. He is 6 years older than me, and he also lives in Iyana Ipaja with us. He was very caring and there is nothing he will not do for me as far as he can afford it. This is how we were managing until this particular day that I was supposed to be free. Normally when I know I will be free the next day, I will collect the money for the foodstuffs after closing the day before so that I can just go to the market from my house very early in the morning, buy the things and drop them off at the chop and go to my boyfriend’s place. But about 3 days before my free, a lady took the morning in the evening and didn’t come back the next morning, and we now had to run to the market to get the foodstuff and everything was so hectic that my madam now said we will need to come to chop the very day that we are free to collect the money to go to the market. So, on that day, I had to go to the chop to collect the money and when I later came with the foodstuffs, two workers didn’t turn up and my madam said I have to stay and work that day that she will fix two free days for me the next week. That is how I worked that day and my whole life changed. Around 2 PM on that Blessed day, some white men from Italy came into our shop to eat. One of them was continuously staring at me to the extent that my madam jokingly said “Kemi, see that Oyibo man dey look you ooo. E be like say he like you” We were all just joking about it and all of a sudden, he came to me and started asking me about myself, he told me that he was from Italy and that he likes me, and he would like to know more about me and he will like to meet my parents and he wants to take me to Italy. I was shocked and my reaction to him was not encouraging. I was a bit harsh to him but also a bit polite because of my madam so that she wouldn't say I was abusing her customer. When they were about to leave, he came and gave me his WhatsApp number and gave me 100 euros. I was shy initially, but my madam encouraged me and told me this could be my chance to leave poverty. I told my madam that I didn’t think Yinka my boyfriend would like it and she was very blunt that if she were my parents she would advise me to follow this man, that Look the 100 euros he gave you is worth more than your one-year salary here. I changed the money that day and I was given over 240 thousand Naira, meanwhile, I was being paid 14,000 Naira monthly. As I was going home that night, I called my boyfriend and I told him what had happened, he asked me if I had already called the man, I said no. he was so angry with me calling me a fool that I had the opportunity to break out of poverty and I couldn’t take the chance. He asked me to call him immediately. I was already close to his house so I told him to wait that I am close to his house so that we could call him together. When I got to his house, we made a WhatsApp call to him, and he invited me to come to his hotel he was lodging in the Airport Hotel. Yinka forced me to go, I was very naïve and nervous,
I even took a drop to the hotel he came down and paid and I followed him inside the hotel. That was my first time entering a hotel. He was ready to buy anything for me that evening and I was chatting with Yinka to tell him all that is going on. When he asked me to sleep over there I refused I wrote Yinka immediately and he said I should sleep or else he would not take me seriously. He said I should know that there were so many hookup girls around that Airport hotel and if I left, I might be surprised that he would pick another day that night and that would be all. So I stayed over but I didn’t allow him to make love to me. But he romanced me, felt me and kissed me the way no other man has ever done. In fact, before then I have known three boys, two from Ado Ekiti and now Yinka in Lagos. I left from there to work the next day and in the evening around closing, he came and gave my madam another 100 euros for everyone. Before then I had already told my madam all that happened the night before. So when he came my madam asked me to close so I could leave with him and that is how my relationship with him started. He was supposed to travel back to Italy the next day so he took me to his hotel and told me everything about himself and I told him everything about myself but I only said Yinka was my brother, I did not let him know he was my boyfriend and it was Yinka that even suggested I tell him that. The next day he called my madam and pleaded that I would not come to work that day because he was leaving the country that day. My Madam agreed but she said she wanted to talk to me to be sure that all was well. So, I talked to my madam on the phone and she told me I had to be wise because she could feel some seriousness in the man. My only problem was that he was 51 and I was just 19. Now fast followed, after he left, he always sent me money, and Yinka was the one that would go and pick it up, I never hid anything from him and when he came back in 2014 in September Yinka was there with me at the airport, we went to receive him together and he checked into Airport Hotel. I stayed with him that night and he told me he would like to marry me and take me with him to Italy, and he wanted us to go and see my parents. So, I informed my parents because I already told my mum about him and my parent said okay we can come. We went and saw my Parents and he said he would like to pay my dowry the same day, This man had already researched everything and he told my father to just calculate how much everything would cost which he paid but my father now insisted that he should come again on Saturday for him to inform his family members to come and know him and hand me over to him officially. After that day, I couldn’t see Yinka again because for me I was already married. I told him everything and we were trying to research how long I needed to be married to get my paper. When we came back from Ado Ekiti, I went to the registry in Ikoyi to get married with my family in attendance and the same day we went to the Italian embassy to inform them that we were married for them to process my visa. But I didn’t even have a Passport at this time so they collected everything from us and asked me to go and do the passport and come back. So why he was around I didn’t see Yinka, but I was always sending him money in his bank account and we were always chatting on WhatsApp. My Husband stayed for another 4 weeks before leaving and he made sure that everything was ready. When he left I went back to my parents in Ado Ekiti and my mum wanted me to come back urgently before I travelled. She was taking me to one church and the other and they were all requesting I do either 3 days of dry fasting or 7 days of dry fasting. So I couldn’t see Yinka and even when he came to see me at Edo Ekiti I wasn’t in the position to do anything with him because I was fasting and secondly I was in my period. He became angry and left with annoyance, but I just thought I would be able to pacify him once I was through with all the fasting and I came back to Lagos before I will leave finally for Italy. I was surprised when my husband how called me and told me that I needed to go to the embassy the next day because my visa was ready, I was still in Ado Ekiti so I needed to hurry up that evening to go to Lagos. I got to Lagos around 10 pm and I headed straight to Yinka’s house. When I got there Yinka was inside with another girl, and he gave me all the blame for his actions. I begged him to forgive me and to promise me that he would not be doing that when I left. He told me to go and sleep at my uncle's place since he could not send the girl away that night. I agreed but instead of going to my uncle's place I just went to the embassy and slept at the front of the embassy. When my husband called me I told him where I was he was very angry and asked me to go to a hotel not far from the embassy. So, I went to the hotel and when Yinka called me if I was already in my uncle's place, I said no that my husband booked me in a hotel. He was shouting on the phone calling me a liar that I am a pr******te, that he knew it that immediately I met my husband everything changed. I tried to call him back so many times he won't pick up my calls. Meanwhile, while I was inside the embassy my husband already bought my ticket online to travel the night of that same day. So, when I came out with my Visa around 2:30 P.m., My husband asked me to inform my parents that I was coming to Italy that night. I called my mum and informed her, and she broke the news to my father, and they started praying for me on the phone. I then went straight to the Airport from the embassy. While at the Airport I called Yinka over 30 times he didn’t pick. My husband was always calling me to know what was going on, he was always telling me what to do I did not even have a hand luggage with me because my husband said it wasn’t necessary as we would need to buy everything over there in Italy because it was already winter.
I got to Italy the next morning and my husband came to pick me up at the airport. I settled down quickly in Italy and I started attending Italian school to learn the language, which I learnt quickly because my husband and his friends and family were all speaking Italian to me. My husband has two sons, but he wasn’t on good terms with them. He told me the story, and that is another long story which I don’t want to bring up here. Now once I settled in Italy everything was just going fine and I had two kids for my husband, two boys, the first one in 2015 and the second one in 2017 after I gave birth to my second son in 2017, all of a sudden around June in 2018, my husband doesn’t get election anymore, initially I thought I was the problem, I try as much as possible to discussed it with my husband because it was disturbing me. My husband was always telling me that it wasn’t my fault because he had a problem, and he was sick which is the reason why he doesn’t get election anymore. I wanted to know, and I insisted we must find a solution to the problem. I ordered some herbs from Nigeria for him still it did not work. At this time my husband would tell me to go out and satisfy myself, he was always saying that he didn’t mind if I needed to have someone else but the only thing, he was pleading for was that I should not leave him. Despite that from my husband I didn’t try it, I was faithful to my husband all through. Even when we went to one African party, there was a guy who was looking at me continuously, My husband even told me “Look Kemi that boy there is looking at you, if you like I will go home with kids and you can get to know him” I was mad at my husband for saying it and I left the party out of annoyance because I was really in love with him after all he did for me and my family. In 2019 my husband became very sick, and he was diagnosed with cancer. You won't believe that within one year you can hardly recognise my husband. He was so lean, and he could hardly move his hands and legs. It was like hell on earth for me, like the whole world just crumbles on me. Nobody to help me, no friend and no assistance, I was the one doing all alone, going to all the offices for one thing or the other, even my husband could hardly move, and he would mess up his clothes as he could not go to the toilet himself. I called the children, and they came and did nothing, they only asked me how much I would need every month to take care of him and I showed them our monthly expenses. They said the only thing they could do was to pay those monthly expenses as they were both in two different cities and they could not leave their work to come and take care of my husband. Around September 2019 my husband was admitted to the hospital. At this time his situation was already so bad that I was advised to prepare for the worst by the doctor treating him. He told me that my husband has only about 9 months to live. It was the saddest day of my life. My husband could hardly talk and could hardly recognise me. I cried the whole day and night because I didn’t know how to start all over again. I was lonely and the only person I could talk to was Yinka. All the while I was always sending him money because my husband thought he was my cousin. So, my husband knows him, and we even tried to help him get a UK visa but the application was declined. In March 2020, my husband died of COVID. He had COVID and he was already very sick, so he didn’t survive it. After the burial of my husband, the sons asked me to sell the house and give them their share or I should give them their share and keep the house but because I didn’t have any money we agreed to sell the house. I was lonely, confused and with no help, and I needed help, I needed people around me, people to talk to, discuss my life situation with and come out of my depression, so I decided to travel back to Nigeria in August of 2020. When I got back to Nigeria, I informed Yinka that I would be coming to Nigeria, and he should meet me at the airport. When I got to Nigeria, I didn’t see Yinka, and I waited almost another 3 hours calling his number and the phone was switched off. This was already around midnight so I asked a staff where I could lodge for the night, and he advised me to just go to the Airport Hotel because of my children and for safety purposes. Throughout the night I didn’t sleep I was calling Yinka’s number continuously, but the phone was switched off so the next morning I travelled to Ado Ekiti.
I got to Edo Ekiti the next day around 2 pm and I still haven’t heard from Yinka. My mum told me to call my uncle and that probably my uncle would be able to help me reach Yinka. It was not until around 8 pm that I was able to reach him. I asked him what happened, and he couldn’t really give anything reasonable. He said first it was the network then he said there was no light and that his phone battery run down as such he was unable to call me because there was no light. He then said he would come and see me in Ado Ekiti that weekend. On Friday, he called me and asked me to book a hotel for him, I was surprised, and I told him there was no need to book a hotel since he was not going to sleep over in Ado Ekiti. He then said he had missed me so much that he could not wait to hold me in his hands, so he wanted me to book a hotel for both of us alone. I told him that a lot was going through my head now that I just lost my husband and that is not what I was thinking, and that I just wanted to see him and talk, he agreed and told me to send him money for transportation which I did. On Saturday he didn’t come, and I called him later he told me he had some issues and that he would come the next day Sunday. Again, he didn’t come the next day Sunday, so I called him around 4 P.m. and asked if he was still coming, he said no he would not be able to make it and that he worked on that Sunday and didn’t close on time. He promised to come and see me the next week. Six weeks after I arrived in Nigeria we still haven’t seen, and my stepson called me from Italy and told me that the agent we gave the house to sell was looking for me as they had found someone who wanted to buy the house. So, I arranged to travel to Italy the next week and I told Yinka that I would be coming to Lagos and staying over in his place since I was leaving my kids with my mum because at this time my kids were already used to my mum and I know I could travel for some days without taking them with me and leave them with my mum.
I arrived in Lagos on Saturday morning even though my flight to Italy was the following Monday, and then I called Yinka that I was in Lagos. When he came he took me to a hotel in Iyana Ipaja, I was surprised and I needed to know why I had to lodge in a hotel and not stay in his place.
---To be Continued
