The Faleti’s
Wife of late Nigerian poet and actor, Adebayo Faleti, recounting all they shared together while he was still alive, Olubunmi Abosede, revealed that she shared a rare mutual connection with her husband.
According to The Nation, though they started off from different sides of the divide in terms of exposure, education and age, in 1981, however they embarked on a romantic and marital sojourn that blossomed to the delight of the couple, their close friends and family.
One thing, Olori (as late Faleti usually called Abosede) would never forget in a hurry was their closeness. Describing it as borderless, the widow recalled painfully that they were so close to the extent that they shared the same pant. This is aside their usual practice of sharing the same clothes around the house, particularly overnight, and before getting dressed for the day’s activities.
“We were so close to the extent that I wore his pants and underwear. Up until his death, if you come to our house very early in the morning, maybe around 6am, I wear his clothes all around the house before getting dressed or set for the day’s activities. Baba was always willing to give me his Buba to wear. We were so close,” she said tearfully.
“We were very close during his lifetime. From the time my parents sent me out after I took in (got pregnant) for him, he accepted me and my child and promised me that no hurt will come to me. He fulfilled his promises.
“Since we got married, I don’t eat alone, I will only eat when he gets back from work. He does the same thing by not eating out until he gets home because he knew I wouldn’t eat until he gets back from work.”
Being his ‘only wife’
When asked the numbers of wives her beloved had in his lifetime, Abosede would not put a figure to it but she would not also deny the obvious; she insisted that she was the only one residing in Faleti’s house and she stayed married to him until his last breath.
Abosede took solace in her late husband’s manner of responding to the question anytime he was asked, especially by journalists.
“If you had visited Baba in his lifetime or even read many newspaper interviews of Baba on the question of the number of his wives, his response had always been that he has only one wife. Most times, Baba would even ask you, how many wives you ever saw in his house or under his roof. And he would be the one to answer that it is only one wife he had.
“So, I do not know the number of wives Baba had but he had already said it with his own mouth, how many wives he had. All I know is that, I have been the only one living with him and under his roof since the first day we got married and till he died,” she said.
The ‘Olori’ and her beau
Abosede said she did not only love her late husband, she also knew him so well because they were best of friends. She recalled that her social affiliations did not favour her to win the love of a renowned and established person like Faleti but that the way her late husband accepted and took care of her when she was rejected by her parents for getting impregnated by him endeared her to him. His penchant for fulfilling all his promises to her was also a very good reason she remained extremely loyal and devoted to him.
Despite her loss, a glimmer of smile surfaced on her face when asked about her late husband’s favourite meal. “He liked amala and gbegiri soup. He could eat it in the morning, afternoon and night. He liked bean cake, fried with palm oil and he also liked meat, fried meat particularly. That is always his favourite anytime he was in his study doing any writing task,” she said.
How they met
The story of how the duo met and got married was an unpalatable aspect of their journey. It was an unexpected and unimaginable thing for, Abosede, a Form Five student of Christ High School, Oleyo, Challenge-Orita, Ibadan to be wooed by an elderly and established man like late Faleti.
Thus Abosede’s initial rejection of her paramour wasn’t so astonishing, Her parents kicked
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