Veteran Nollywood screen diva, Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde, has described how she felt when she learned her father had died.
The beautiful mother-of-four, in a new chat on the latest episode of #WithChude, said her father’s death made her numb and affected her strangely, like something died in her.
Omotola revealed she had a very close relationship with her father to the point that she couldn’t react when she got home to the news of his death. “I was numb and emotionless, and it has affected me to this day”, she said.
Narrating the event, she said; “When I was about nine years old, I was shipped to Command Secondary School in Kaduna. By that time, they had just given birth to my younger brother. I was a child and I did not take it well at all.
“I even remember when he was leaving, and we both were crying. It really affected me – I thought the reason was because he now had other kids, and I was no longer important to him.
“I think everything I have been, positively or negatively, was solely because of my father’s death. It affected me so much; I did not even know how much at the time. I did not even mourn my dad.
“When I was about nine years old, I was shipped to Command Secondary School in Kaduna. By that time, they had just given birth to my younger brother. I was a child, and I did not take it well at all.
“I even remember when he was leaving, and we both were crying. It really affected me – I thought the reason was because he now had other kids, and I was no longer important to him.
“I think everything I have been, positively or negatively, was solely because of my father’s death. It affected me so much; I did not even know how much at the time. I did not even mourn my dad.”
“At the age of 12, I was becoming a little lady, and I was excited to spend time with my father. That was when I got called out of school because I needed to be home. I knew someone had died because of how everyone in school was tiptoeing around me. The only thing I kept saying at the airport was, ‘I just hope it is not my dad.
“For some callous reason, I was okay with it being anyone but him. When I got home, I was greeted by a crowd. As I walked into the house, I was thinking about which of my family members had died. I saw my brothers, then I saw my mum, and, at that moment, I froze because I knew it was my dad that had died.
“I’m not sure if it was the guilt of wishing death on someone else, and not him, or because I was too young to process it or because I was still angry with him for shipping me off, but I was numb and emotionless, and it has affected me to this day. It was like something died in me.”