Wife of Psquare’s Peter Okoye, Lola Omotayo-Okoye , has recounted how she was sexually molested by a catholic priest while she was ...
Wife of Psquare’s Peter Okoye,
Lola Omotayo-Okoye, has recounted how she was sexually molested by a catholic
priest while she was a teenager.
The mother of two shared this
story while encouraging and motivating young ladies to pursue their dreams no
matter the obstacle during the Kinabuti Dare2Dream project.
As part of her inspirational
speech, she said:
“You shouldn’t let your past determine
what your destiny will be. We all have our past
whether good or bad or makes us
unhappy, we all had a life that we lived that we are not happy about. You
shouldn’t let it bother you from succeeding.
“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 cos I
felt 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.
"I felt like a loser, so it was
hard for me to focus. One day I woke up and said I am going to change my story
and I dumped that person, focus on my education and decided to be serious and
to be something. I decided to get a job and go to school full time in America.
"I worked hard. My parent were sending
me money cos 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 parent
even though they would have done anything for me. So, I did all sorts of job; I
was a make up artiste, I worked in a café, school library. I did so many things
and I didn’t realise that these jobs were building me up as a person, building
my resume, my confidence…
“People began to like me because
I was adding value to their lives. At work I was excellent and so was I in
school and that built me as a strong woman and at some point, I sought
counselling to get over my molestation issues where I was made to see reasons
why I wasn’t at fault cos I was a child then. Today, I am accomplished…"
She further admonished the
attendees that:
