 |
| Ara talks to the GDA |
after her exile was her marriage to the scion of the traditional ruler of
Oworon Shoki in Lagos, South West Nigeria, Prince Olalekan Saliu who is the
father of her only son, but the union broke barely three years into it. Ara for
the very first time revealed factors that led to the breaking of the union, she
told asabeafrika everything. Read on.
 |
| Ara, GDA and her son, Irewole. |
youthful exuberance. I refused to see the signs during courtship; the signs
were there during courtship. But because I felt like ‘Ok, the devil you know is
better than the angel you don’t know’ I decided to stick. My father (late
Alhaji Hameed Olamuyiwa, Baba Adinni of Ondo kingdom) warned me, my mother
equally warned but I went ahead and I wasn’t this close to God. And even at
that, as a prodigal daughter, I saw things but I refused to listen. Violence
was in the relationship from the onset. And by the time I got into it and I had
my child and things started going wrong, the union started going wrong, I tried
my best but I couldn’t leave him because some other women were involved in his
life. I am a very practical person, I don’t deceive myself. A man will have as many (concubines) as he
want to, but as long as he doesn’t rub it in your face, he doesn’t bring it to
your home, he respects you and does his part. He is there when you need him;
whatever spare time he spends with the other people is just the time he can
afford to waste. But in a case where he spends the most precious of his time
with you, don’t go out there and look for his mistresses. Yeah, it is true. It
is true, I have learnt from a lot of people, much older women and my mother
would tell me ‘listen, iwo ni aso amurode, akisa ni awon yen’ (You are his
indispensable clothe for the proverbial outing, they are his rags). His
concubines are the rags; you can’t wear a rag to an auspicious occasion. So, I
was never bothered about his women. In fact there was a time that I picked his
call and one of his women friends insulted me and I said to her “My sister, you
are right. I shouldn’t have picked this call” and I dropped the call and
quickly sent her a short message (SMS). I said “Please, forgive me. I am very
sorry. It is not your fault, it is his fault”. You know, after we separated,
she was one of the people I called. I said “I have left him, maybe he will work
with you now?”, and she asked “I hope it is not because of me that you left
your husband?” I said “No, because you are not the only issue, we had other
issues”. She was like “ah, ah? Please
drop, let me call you back”. She called and said “Who are you?” I said “why do
you ask?” She said “Because, I have my own husband, I was just having fun with
your husband”. She didn’t know I was Ara. It was later she now found out.
She called and said “So, you are the famous Ara?” and I said “Listen,
it is not about stardom or status. It is about your orientation”. She said she
needed to meet me, that she can’t imagine hurting a person like me. I said “why
should I bother?” I don’t need to bother, when I need him at home, he is there
to do his part. Any woman that want to live long, to be honest, any woman that
want to live long in her marriage and be the mother of her children, do not
bother about what your man does outside as long as he does his part at home and
perfectly well and as long as he does not beat you because violence is the only
thing I believe a woman should not condone because there are so many things in
a man’s world that we will never understand as women”.
 |
| Ara…. I give all praises to God Almighty |
We wanted to know why her ex found it
cool to cheat on such a beautiful lady like ARA, was she cheating on
him in anyway? “I never for one second, this is my Holy Bible (Touched a large
black colored Bible on her desk) cheated on my husband? Not for a second; I
wash his clothes, I cook his food, and I served him myself. I mean, I pounded
(Yam) for him, he was the one that said “No, don’t pound again, buy the flower
one (Poundoyam) and make for me”. I don’t allow house maids to wash his
clothes. The one I can’t wash, I will take it to the drycleaner as a sign of
respect. Because he was my Ade Ori (Crown) I wanted a home. I am a very romantic person. I am a very
deep and passionate woman, and when I give myself to a man, I give everything.
Anything I have is his and I give him that respect. And I have learnt a lot of
things from older women, that if you want to live long and be happy; do not,
don’t give room for hearsay because either your man is rich or handsome, they
will come after him. If he is rich, they
will come after him, if he is handsome and he is not rich, they will come after
him. And even if he is none of the two, he will have people coming after him at
his own level. So, why do you want to kill yourself? For the fact that he is
lying to you, and telling you ‘there is nothing like that’, he respects you, so
why don’t you just live and be happy. Let his lie be your truth. Accept him,
that part of him that he is showing to you, accept it. The only reason why my
marriage didn’t work was violence. Apart from that, I would have been able to
cope with everything because I wanted to be the mother of my son. That was just
it”.
HELD THE MARRIAGE
 |
| Ara…My deal with Atunda was a bondage. |
Ara went ahead to reveal the genesis of her encounter with the Oworon Shoki
prince in 1995 and how he kept appearing and disappearing from her life for
several years before the date finally clicked “Yes, we did met a long time ago,
that was 1995 but our courtship was brief. We dated briefly before he travelled
out. He came back in 2001 and I was already Ara by then (Famous Ara).
But by the time he came back, really, I had gone through a lot in the course of
keeping out of relationships because of him, some family members said “Maybe,
you need to talk to him, what went wrong, why did he abandon you because during
that period, I met different people that I would have dated but I refused to
date any of them. It was later I now got to know that he had fathered two
children while abroad. It was then I made up my mind and started dating someone
else at the time. So, he came back and apologized to me. He said, ‘I am sorry,
I did this, I did that because of circumstances beyond me”. To be honest with
you, he is a very nice guy (Olalekan Saliu). He is a very nice guy, he has a
good heart. He can give you anything. And we were in love; we were truly in
love. As for me o, I was in love. I don’t know what happened. So, when he came
back in 2001, he misbehaved again. So, I just told myself, this is it. He came
back in 2004; I refused to have anything doing with him. He came back in 2006
and then I was ill, I had surgery and he came to see me at the hospital. Then,
in 2007, he came again and he kept begging that he has changed, that he is now
a better man. So, I said ‘ok, why not. Let’s give it a trial’ and that was how
it started. That was how we went into it. We had a Nikkai, we had a registry
wedding. We had a huge wedding ceremony; a huge one and we became husband and
wife”.
 |
| Ara looking ahead |
Being a Christain and marrying a Muslim must
have come as a challenge for Ara, hear what she said “That was
never really a challenge in the sense that I am from a Muslim home too; I was born a Muslim but now, I am a Christian by
faith. My parents are Muslim but of all my father’s children, every one of us is
Christians. My father is the (former) Baba Adinni of Ondo Central Mosque. But
his children are all Christian because my dad schooled in the United Kingdom,
my dad is an Oxford graduate, so, he is liberal, a very enlightened man. He is
a liberal minded person. My mum came from a Catholic home and she married a
Muslim. Out of love and respect for my dad, she went to Mecca and practiced the
religion for his sake. She did that out
of love and respect for her husband. But in my own case, I told my husband from
onset that I can not compromise my Christian faith because I have a personal
relationship with Christ long time ago. Christ appeared to me in a trance; He
came to me and in that vision where he appeared to me, I was on a plank in the
middle of third mainland bridge. I couldn’t go forward, I couldn’t go backward.
The bridge was separated, I now stood on that plank and said “God, how would I
fulfill my destiny, I am stranded”. From out of nowhere, somebody touched me
and it was Christ, in His glowing majesty. In all His Glory and He didn’t say a
word. He just stretched His hand and by the time I put my hand in His, I was
already at my destination. So, as I was coming down I was looking for Him, but
He was far off, going. In the trance, I was shouting, “Hey let me thank you!
Let me thank you! Why did you help me? I don’t even know you. He just looked at
me; he smiled and waved and disappeared. What it meant to me is this; trust me.
So, I had a personal relationship with Christ. So, I told him (Husband) and he
knows. In fact, it was a tradition then, when he wakes up in the morning, he
will say “Ala wo lotun la leni” (which revelation did you have of me today?”)
Because of my gift of clairvoyance and at a time I realized that the entire
dream I was seeing and relating to him made him know that I was having a lot of
information about him and he felt uncomfortable. so, I stopped telling him my
dreams and he got angry with me and said “well, a’a kuku mo nkan ton ri loju
ala moo nisinyi” “Aa kuku mo nkan ton fi han e, oo kuku so nkan fun wa mo” (I
don’t know what you saw about me in your dream any longer, you don’t reveal
things to me any longer). So, I stopped telling him anything. But at that time,
I already made up my mind that I was leaving the relationship, it was three
years relationship, we got back in 2007 and we married in 2010”
+ LAST STRAW THAT BROKE OUR MARRIAGE.
 |
| Ara in a rare pose |
Asabeafrika
made enquiry to know what was thefinal straw that broke her marriage to Prince Saliu and if she ever thought her
ex-husband in any way felt uncomfortable with her towering status? Ara
has the answer “The last time I told myself that if he hits me again, I will
leave. Because it happened in front of my son at times; and it was for no
reason other than insecurity on his part. In fact, when I was in the union with
him, my career was not moving anywhere because I was more at home; I wanted to
please him. So, I only picked shows that I knew that will not bring trouble. I
think a lot of things changed about him that I didn’t take into cognizance at
the beginning of the marriage. It was never bound to be a good relationship
from the beginning but I wasn’t spiritual enough about it, I took every thing
with levity. But I thank God for manifesting Himself in the whole scenario. God
was the only factor I had over every other thing”. This blog asked the very
gifted talking drummer to define what she meant by saying the union wasn’t
meant to have hold initially? This is what she said “After our separation, I
found out that while we were together, he was still legally married to two
women who annulled my marriage to him automatically. I went to see Festus
Keyamo
the lawyer and he said to me ‘Madam, sorry, you were a mistress. You were never
a wife. Because he had an existing marriage before mine and luckily I was able
to relate with the lady in question. She sent me their marriage certificate and
I took it to the registry where we got married and my entire marriage certificates
were nullified. And that was it”. On
weather her ex made efforts to reconcile she had this to say “He calls me
everyday now, begging me to come back, he says to me, “Lola, you are a good
woman and I know you are a good woman. I am sorry, it was the devil, please
come back”. But I can’t because he already has a child by another woman. Eight
months into our separation, a lady had a child for him. Apparently she was
pregnant all the while. That is not even an issue as far as I am concerned but
there is more to it and I really don’t want to talk about it. I have said that
I can never, never go back. I love my son so much, even if that was his last
wish, I wont. I won’t honor it, I have my reasons”.
marriage by Ara; watch out for the concluding part on this blog in 48hrs.
time)
Good interview and quite revealing as it were. I think she deserve a memoir in this form. I am quite surprised she went through all that in a life time. The Lord is her strenght o.—Kunle Ajibade