The 79-year-old recipient of the Officer of the Order of the
Niger (OON), made the revelation in a recent interview with TheNation.
According to her:
“I have been through the fire, I emerged fortified. I was 15
years old when I had a child. By 16, I was on my own. I knew I was going to get
a good education. I was going to be a lawyer.
But I knew that I was on my own. My family disowned me. I
married one David Akinduro in 1959 after I relocated to the U.K, but I left him
due to domestic violence.
I met Thomas Lycett long after I divorced my first husband.
Eventually I married him. We had a blissful marriage. He died when I was
52-years-old. I remember him everyday.
He was the one that told me that I was better off being an
actor. In 2006, I was robbed and raped in my house in Egbe. I was tied. I was
beaten. I was brutalized. My health was ruined.
I was blindfolded and raped. The man who raped me complained
that he couldn’t gain easy entry into me because I wasn’t wet. I told him
‘widows don’t get wet.’
I kept talking to them and asked them repeatedly, ‘Are you
doing this to your mother?’ Angrily, they taped my mouth but I remained
fearless and prayed all through the attack.
The police came. They expected me to pursue the case. I knew
the masterminds. I could have gotten them incarcerated but I simply moved on.
Look at me today, I am over it. See, the mind is a beautiful
thing. When you hold on to past hurt, you tie yourself down to grief. You get
infected with its poison.
Rather than wallow in grief and self-pity, I picked myself
up and sought medical help, ensuring that they hadn’t infected me with any
STD.. That same year, the Obasanjo government got me the Officer of the Order
of the Niger (OON) national honour.
Few years later, One of them came to prostrate before me,
pleading for my forgiveness. I told him to seek forgiveness from God. I told
him that I had moved on.”
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