Nollywood actor Solomon Akiyesi was a viral subject of a multiple wedding saga that rocks social media like wildfire
on April 13th, 2013.
His jealous second wife Lilian stormed his wedding with
some hoodlums on the aforementioned date to disrupt the wedding service.
Solomon Akiyesi who has kept silent for a while has broken his
silence, in this recent chat with Damiete Braide of Daily Sun, the actor said his own side of the story.
Hear
Solomon Akiyesi in his own words below;
I’ve
not only suffered verbal attacks, but also vituperations and near fisticuffs,
all because of another futile attempt of mine at my journey towards achieving
that which I honestly and passionately desire – a peaceful home and family.
Social network sites and blogs have been awash with how I left Lilian, my
“pregnant” wife, to marry Uloma, my Lagos “mistress” whom they also claimed was
pregnant for me. Nothing can be farther from the truth.
Only
a mad or cursed man would simply leave his pregnant wife and elope with another
one. And lest I forget, I urge you, as you read this, to have an open mind to
listen to that which is true instead of taking sides and jumping into wicked
conclusions with its attendant wicked insults and uncouth commentaries about
how Solomon is running his life and how he is not. I’m not asking for pity or
trying to buy anybody’s love at this time.
This
is my life. If at my age I don’t know what I want, then I may just remain the
dumb ass that I’ve been called over and over again. I don’t think I need anyone
to give me any lecturing on how I should exercise my privileges.
For
the record, I never planned on marrying more than one wife. And unlike the
serial husband I’ve been labelled, I had dreamt and planned a lovely home and
family.
And
my quest for this dates back to 2003 after I had moved into Port Harcourt. I
soon settled down with Ezinne, my university days girlfriend, whom I ran into
in Port Harcourt during her National Youth Service. As fate had it, we couldn’t
help reliving old times and one thing led to another. One fateful, rainy
Thursday evening in October, 2002, Ezinne came to inform me that she was
pregnant.
It
was as far as I was concerned, a devastating blow to the new life I was living;
rap music, cars, money and women. So, I told her the pregnancy was unacceptable
to me. Besides, I only just started working and needed stability. But months
later, Ezinne was to inform me that she was carrying a baby girl.
And
knowing my attachment to baby girls and not wanting to ever have a baby outside
wedlock, I repented and changed my thuggish ways and asked her to marry me,
more so that I was mature enough in every ramification. Or so I thought.
And
so, sometime in April, 2003, I hired a hall and invited a pastor to come
officiate at my marriage with Ezinne and bless our rings. All done, we went
home and started as husband and wife. God, the creator, knew how glad I was and
looked forward to a happy home. However, five days after that marriage, I
called my new wife on my way from work to ask what was up for dinner and she
told me she had been in the hospital.
I
rushed to the hospital and was told by Ezinne that she lost the baby. I got her
discharged and took her home. But I was completely broken at the loss of a baby
I had expected so much. Four days later, I asked my wife if she actually saw
the dead baby. She responded by saying the doctor brought it but she gave
instruction for it to be buried because she could not behold the sight. Instinctively,
I called the doctor – both to thank him and to confirm because he wasn’t around
when I went to pick her home. After thanking the doctor, I asked of the sex of
my dead baby.
The
doctor didn’t talk for like six seconds. I asked him the same question again
and he said he’s been restless in his spirit and that he could no longer keep
the fact that there was no baby inside Ezinne and that nothing like miscarriage
happened in his hospital. I challenged him again and asked if he was not the
same person, who confirmed her pregnant and that Ezinne had been attending
antenatal in his hospital.
He
responded that he had not set his eyes on Ezinne since October of the previous
year. Meanwhile, Ezinne had always taken money from me for antenatal and had
even shopped for the baby! It then became clear to me that this was a fluke all
together.
Sadly
enough, Ezinne denied any wrongdoing. For three years, I exposed opportunities
for Ezinne to simply tell me the truth but she never took advantage of any of
the opportunities. Alas! She was not pregnant. I decided to investigate myself
and took her for HSG where it was discovered that there were no fallopian tubes
in her and that there was evidence of previous surgery of the uterus. I
independently probed further and found out with evidence that Ezinne had a
life-threatening abortion in 1992 that resulted in the rupture and subsequent
removal of her womb and tubes.
My
biggest pain was not what I found out but the fact that Ezinne hid all this
from me all these years and was still being economical with the truth even when
confronted with hard evidence! In frustration, I moved out of the house but not
before taking her to her mum in search of the truth.
Even
the mum corroborated what Ezinne gave as excuse for the scar that runs from her
navel down to her pubic region, i.e. she was operated upon due to menstrual
irregularities. I then decided to stay out for good. While I was out, my
relationship with Lillian whom I had known years earlier grew.
I
was always going to see her in Enugu. I then got me another apartment and
Lillian came around quite often too. Gradually Lillian grew from that little
girl I was merely helping in her schooling, into a mature, witty and
intelligent young woman. So, having taken my people to Ezinne’s place for the
dissolution of the marriage – since we did only traditional marriage – I
proposed to Lillian.
And,
in 2007, we proceeded to the registry for marriage. And that was the day her
father started troubling me. He insisted Lillian was not supposed to go home
with me. For two years, he cut communication with me. Shortly after the
marriage, my businesses ran into a crises and my entire life nose-dived.
There
was tremendous loss in my finances. In my travail, Lillian’s father went to the
police and told them to deal seriously with me because I was an “irresponsible
son-in-law”. When the challenges kept mounting and seeing my life was at risk
after I was badly shot, I left town to sojourn elsewhere. In 2010, I gradually
re-emerged and we started finding our footing again.
Even
though I tried to settle down again, I found that the centre could no longer
hold, as Lillian had metamorphosed into a nag and had acquired a fire tongue
with which she talked me down and reigned curses on me at any little provocation.
There was no week we didn’t have a major fight, whether I was home or not.
At
some point, she became religious. And having found her way into Winners Chapel,
she suggested to me one day that it was necessary we took our marriage to God
since we hadn’t a proper wedding. She said her church pastors were willing to
help in blessing our marriage so there could be a turnaround. To this, I
obliged. She said she would love for us to wear wedding costumes for the
purpose of photographs. To this I also consented. And so, to Winners Chapel we
went and were blessed and certificated.
But
it was as if that blessing was what someone was waiting for before they would
blow the whistle that would usher me into the hall of pain. Lillian became
insatiable.
You
would see tiny ingredients of marriage only when I could ensure her comfort.
Once Lillian’s comfort was compromised, she would lampoon me and tell me my
life history in graphic details and lecture me on what Mr. A and B have done
for their wives that I’m not able to do.
It’s
even worse when I try to remind her of the recent past that I laboured
tenaciously to keep her happy. Once she told me that there was nothing I had
done in the past that anybody couldn’t have done. Imagine sacrificing all
you’ve got, including almost your life, for someone who would tell you it’s no
big deal and that any other person could have done what you did. And then,
suddenly, she wanted me to quit my acting career or she would divorce me. My
phones were always her best companions at night. If she was not reading my
texts, she was in my facebook or BBM.
I
had no peace. My best moment was whenever I had to leave home for work. And
after work I never wanted to go back home. On a trip back home sometime ago, I
was praying that my aircraft should crash and I die instead of going home. Even
when I was driving home, I was under strong temptation to ram into oncoming
vehicles instead of going home.
It
was either that a long list of demand would be waiting for me or an equally
longer list of questions about whom I had been online with and whom I had been
calling and not calling.
Then
on the side was a supposed father-in-law, who claimed he regretted the marriage
because he wasn’t getting anything from it and that I only came to destroy the
love that existed in their family before the marriage. So, my joy knew no
bounds when Lillian told me last year that she was pregnant. For me, it was a
good thing. Maybe the baby would take her attention away from me at last. Then
the heat started again. I must provide N2 million for her to deliver her baby,
even though she knows my income and its source. When her pressure got to a head
and to avoid the same road I travelled with Ezinne, I took Lillian to a
gynaecologist. A scan was run on her and the result was declared before the two
of us that she was not pregnant.
This
was after she told me that she had done an independent scan and that she was
carrying triplets! Even with the medical confirmation, Lillian never stopped
her push for N2 million and money for baby shopping. I ended up suffering a
partial stroke in January. Yet she would wake me up at 2am to ask me of my
plans to raise N2 million for her, even while I was bedridden with stroke.
I
knew then that I was going to die in that marriage and had to do something about
it. Ladies and gentlemen, this is about my life. If what greeted the Internet
and press was that I died, trying to please Lillian and my marriage, people
would still insult me and ask why I didn’t take a walk. And taking a walk I
tried to do but I did not do it right.
I
tried to skip due process to avoid hurting anyone. More so, I did not have the
political and emotional will to ask for divorce. Pray, people, divorce is not
like going to a grocery store where you go to pay your money and come back with
a bag full. What would have been my ground for divorce? I should also confess
that I could not find an answer to what would happen to Lillian if I asked her
to go because I was more than a husband to her.
So,
I foot-dragged to the point of taking the easy way out. And the easy way is not
usually the best way as I found out on Saturday, April 13.
Uloma
did not just jump into the picture to “snatch” Solomon from Lillian. Uloma has
been my friend since 2006. We met again in 2009 at the peak of my business crisis
and have been seeing each other afterwards. Candidly, I was swept away by the
love, understanding and the peaceful disposition Uloma proffered even as a
friend, far from the opposites I was getting back home. The way Uloma treated
me was the exact desires any man longed for in a wife. So, I was always running
to her whenever Lillian lit her fires.
So,
I asked myself why I couldn’t marry her. Far from the evil rumour that I wanted
to marry Uloma because of her money, I wanted to marry Uloma to fill a vacuum
in her life and make her happy and fulfilled because this woman with a heart of
gold who has impacted many lives deserved to be happy.
If
that was what I could ever do to plant some comfort in her life. If there was
going to be any immediate gain for me, it would have been peace of mind and its
attendant long life, not her money or any physical or material gains. I’m not a
lazy man.
Apart
from being an actor, I have been in business for almost fifteen years. Years
back, when I poured millions of naira on exotic cars and a posh house in Port
Harcourt, Uloma was a seventy thousand naira recovery staff in Sterling Bank.
Today, even if Uloma gave me all her salary from where she presently works, it
won’t be enough to put Internet credit in my tablets and phones. Someone even
posted that I said I would have ‘hammered’ if I had married Uloma.
What
could I possibly gain? Uloma wasn’t frustrated to the point of desperation to
pay a man to marry her. There was no award for anyone who married her. She does
not own an estate or anything willed to her by anyone that I was running after.
Uloma is not the daughter of any rich man or top politician. She’s as much a
hustler as I am.
Ok,
yes, sincerely, maybe I actually would have ‘hammered’ long life, happiness,
inner joy, a sense of being loved and long life. I also would have ‘hammered’
having her sisters as my sisters because they love me like their own brother –
a far cry from what my own people give me.
If
I had married Uloma, I know I would have had a good burial whenever I died
because I’ve always been scared that at my level of loneliness, whenever I die,
my corpse would probably have decomposed before my people would find me. I beg
to be loved and appreciated. Nobody to call my own.
No
one ever cared about me. I have always been alone and hardworking too. From way
back, my joys, my sorrows I have always swallowed alone. But Uloma was the only
person who truly listened to my heart and understood where I was coming from.
So to say any of my failed marriages was for money is simply stupid and
unreasonable. The first car Ezinne ever drove and financing for her first
attempt at business all came from me.
Lillian
was not born with a silver spoon. Her father is only a retired naval officer
and the last time I checked he had no wealth ascribed to his name. On her 18th
birthday, I bought Lillian an exotic Corolla car. At 300 level in school, I
gave her a Mercedes Benz.
Then
she graduated with an LS400 Lexus. This is apart from a lush apartment and
school bills that God used me to help her take care of. So, who amongst these
would I have married for money? Uloma stood out because she’s shared my pain
even when it was because of me and that explains why it was a difficult task
telling her Lillian was still in my tracks.
I
couldn’t have deliberately gone out of my way to hurt Uloma, because that will
be simply committing suicide. Hurting Uloma is like waging war against a
nation. Is it her legion of admirers I will have to contend with or her nation
of die-hard lovers who will be tumbling over each other to get a pound of
flesh?
I
wouldn’t give hurt for the love and hope Uloma and her family gave me.
Unfortunately the same scandals I thought I was preventing by not doing what
everyone is saying I would have done is now the same thing staring me in the
face, and everyone is worse hurt.
And
above all, my own life is now seriously at risk because I feared hurting
anyone. I ask all concerned to please sheathe their swords of anger and find it
in their hearts to forgive me. I will make restitution as much as the mercy of
God permits me. It’s never too late to begin again as far as God keeps us all
alive.
I’m
a man on a mission for a peaceful marriage, a good home and family life. I
guess my desperation took good reasoning off me. Again, I am humbly and truly
sorry. I thank my friends who have stood by me through this trial. Your
comforting words are like lights on my dark path.
And for the
judgmental few, I urge you; work with the truth while the Almighty fixes that
which went wrong in my life.
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