Wife of Psquare’s Peter Okoye, Lola Omotayo has revealed how she was molested and sexually abused as a teenager.
While addressing a group of young ladies at a Kinabuti event, which held some months ago in Lagos, the mum of two and career woman said she was molested when she was in high school – by a priest – and for the longest time she blamed herself and kept quiet about it because she did not think anybody will believe her.
“When I was a young girl in my early teens in high school, I was molested by a catholic priest, I blamed myself, I didn’t tell anyone because I was ashamed, couldn’t tell anyone because everyone would blame me, so I carried on the guilt and bitterness with me for years. I was filled with hate and I became an angry person, I was rebellious, I didn’t want to listen to anybody…and because I wanted to be expelled from school to avoid seeing this person, I would do so many terrible things, everything around me was just so negative, I felt I wasn’t good enough”.
On sexual abuse, she said “I moved on to the university, met the love of my life and I’m like, okay this guy is cool, he loves me but he started to abuse me. I was beaten black and blue all the time, in front of friends, in public and at a point, I felt, you know what, I am not worthy enough, there is nothing about me that is nice, nobody loves me but I hid this from my family. I felt like a loser, so it was hard for me to focus. But one day, I woke up and said I am going to change my story and I dumped that person, focused on my education and decided to be serious and be something. I decided to get a job and go to school full time in America”.
According to her, she worked to make her own money to avoid depending on her parents.
“I worked hard, my parents were sending me money because I didn’t tell them I was working but I was working because I wanted to be independent. I didn’t want to depend on any man or on my parents even though they would have done everything for me, so I did all sorts of job and that way, I built my confidence and today I am accomplished.”
She further mentioned her husband and cited him as an example: “Look at my husband, when I met him, peeps were like what are you doing with him, he has nothing but I stood my ground and chose to stick with him because he had a dream. He and his twin brother did not let their dream die, they worked hard, look at them today! I stuck by him because he had focus and drive and today I am happy, I have a good life, we are happy and we have got a beautiful family. No one can make you a loser.”
She concluded by advising young ladies not to give up on their dreams.
“You shouldn’t let your past determine what your destiny will be, we all have our past whether good or bad, we all had a life that we lived that we are not happy about, you shouldn’t let it bother you from succeeding. You can be whatever woman you want to be but you have to believe in yourself, if they reject you today, it doesn’t mean you should let your dreams die, you have something unique about you.” (Daily Post)