Former minister of Aviation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode recently had
an interview with Mytestimonys.blogspot.com,
and we found the interview very revealing and we therefore decided to serve you
an extract of the interview where the likeable politician spoke about his
failed marriages and how he loves his wife, Regina. Enjoy the excerpts
Please tell us about your own marriage, your
wife and the many experiences that you have had with women. We are sure
that our readers can learn one or two things from you? Has your heart ever been
broken? How much do you rely on your wife
FFK: I have never spoken publicly or in details
about my wife, my marriage or my private life, though there are all sorts of
speculations and disinformation about these matters all over the place. Yet
today I will do so for the first time since I got married to her 16 years ago.
I will do so only because I want you and other young people to learn and
appreciate what it is to be married to a wise, virtuos, humble, God-fearing,
powerful and loving woman who has enough faith to move mountains in both my
life and hers and who dares to believe and trust God for anything and
everything. I will also do so to prove to you and others that I am not
infallible and that I have made so many mistakes in my private life that you
and your readers can learn from and can avoid making. That is why I will talk
about these sensitive and deeply personal matters and for no other reason. I am
a public figure and have been so from a very young age. Yet ever since I met my
wife I have tried to guard her privacy and that of all my children and keep
them away from public glare and scrutiny. This is especially so with my wife
because she is an intensly private person who never speaks to the press and who
has very few friends. She is very circumspect, reticent, inward-looking,
discerning and she is very sensitive to and about people. It is part of her
calling and training and now it has become her nature. She hardly talks to
strangers, she keeps to herself and she prefers to be virtually invisible to
those that are not close to her. She is also aware and very sensitive to the
great evil that exists in this world so she is very careful indeed about
letting her guard down or exposaing herself or our daughter to that evil.
She did not chose a public life, I did. So she
has always told me to keep her away from all the publicity and public scrutiny
because she hates it and because she is very sensitive and protective of our
daughter Remi. Yet today it is fair for me to extol a few of her virtues and
expose a few of my warts and weaknesses and talk just a little about the blessing
that God gave me in Regina. The truth is that to have put up with someone
like me for so long the lady really is a saint and I appreciate her so much. I
do not and have never taken her for granted even though I have slipped and
failed her more than once in the past. It is her ability to love even the
unlovable and very complicated, volatile, complex and unpredictable soul called
FFK that moves me so much. She never judges me by my actions because she sees
my heart and she knows that I am a good person despite it all. She loves me
just the way I am and no matter what happens to me, unlike anyone else on this
planet of 7 billion people, she will never forsake me or turn her back on me no
matter what. That is what gives me strength and that is why I cherish her today
and I always will.
Now let me just start answering your question by
saying that I am not an angel. Like most married men, I have made mistakes in
the past and I have let down my wife on a number of occasions. Yet despite
that, I never stopped loving her. Not many people will admit to that. So I am
not an angel but neither have I ever considered the possibility of leaving my
wife though on many occassions she almost left me. I have been close to her
since 1994. We got married in 1997 and the only way that I would ever leave her
is if she says that she does not want me any more and that she loves someone
else. That is the only circumstance under which I would release her. I
pray that it never comes to that but the truth is that the last few years have
been very tough for us both in terms of our marriage and this saddens me
deeply.
Yet only death can stop me from loving my wife
and even after that I will still continue to love her because I know what she
has done for me in my life. We have been apart for quite some time now but that
doesnt mean anything to me. My relationship with her transcends the
physical. We have been apart only because I have kept her out of this country
because President Umaru Yaradua wanted to lock her up and lock up my eleven
year old daughter for doing absolutely nothing. I have never said this publicly
before. They just wanted to spite me and I swore that as long as my case with
the EFCC is on I will not let my family come back to this country. I wont
let them come back because I will not allow them to suffer or be humiliated
simply because someone here hates me and wants to take it out on them. I have
gone through that pain of being separated from the one I love more than life
itself for a number of years now, yet it does not in any way affect my
relationship with her. I trust her absolutely and she understands me very well.
Even before a thought crosses my mind Regina knows what it is because
she knows me even better than I know myself. Most importantly she caused me to
start believing in my self again even when I lost all confidence in myself and
my future and when I didn’t even want to live anymore. My enemies and
detractors tried everything under the sun to destroy my marriage but when you
have a soul mate that is your wife, true love transcends boundaries and every
circumstance.
If you want to know the people that when I hear
their voice I will stop whatever I am doing and I would always listen,
there are just three of them. The three are firstly my wife Regina- if
I become too difficult to control you know what to do. That is a deep secret I
have just shared with you. She is the only person that can make me change my
course once I have decided to take a particular position on any issue. She has
never been wrong over any issue since 1993 when I went to Ghana and
first met her. This young girl (as she then was) was praying for me from
as far back as that time. She’s a woman of God- A daughter of Zion that
comes from the distant land of the kente cloth. The first time I ever laid my
eyes on her in 1993 she was preaching passionately and eloquently in a packed
all night service in a place called Dzorwulu in Accra. She was moving
hearts and winning souls for the Kingdom of God and I
remember thinking to myself that what on earth is this stunning beauty like
this doing on the pulpit? She has come a long way since then and for the last
twenty years she has been a full time pastor and an insightful, compassionate
and gifted intercessor.
She is a servant of the Living God. That’s her
calling. She has never been wrong about anything that she has advised me about
ever since I met her and she has just managed me all these years even as
difficult and as complicated as I am. She loves me unconditionally just
as I do her. So she is the first person that I always listen to. The second is
my spiritual father Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams. A great warrior for
the Lord and a very strong and powerful man. He is indeed one of God’s end-time
generals on the planet today and a man that moves very powerfully in the
prophetic realm. He has done more damage to the kingdom of darkness and the
agenda of the devil and his agents here on earth than any other man that I have
ever met and I love him dearly.The third person that I always listen to is my
political leader and my boss President Olusegun Obasanjo who I just love and
admire. He is an inspirational leader. A man of great courage and strength and
his love for and faith in Nigeria is beyond human understanding. So
these are the three people that I trust and that I always listen to.
But as I was saying earlier, some relationships
transcend the normal boundaries. It’s just a unique peculiar relationship that
I have with my wife. Yet having said that I have, like every other married man,
disappointed her once or twice. Once or twice I have misbehaved and let her
down and that’s an admission of failure. It is shameful and nothing to be proud
of. I share it with you only so that you can appreciate the danger and futility
in doing such things. It wounds the soul and brings so much pain that it is
just not worth it. A lot of men think it’s a sign of virility for them to
have many extra-marital affairs but I see it as failure. My weakness is that I
tend to love deeply and fall in love easily. Most men have the ability to guard
their hearts and they believe that the more women you sleep with the stronger
and better you are. I don’t believe that. I am a romantic and people like me
often get hurt and wounded when they make the wrong choices.
My heart has been broken five times in my life.
Badly broken. It almost killed me each time. I can feel the pain of people that
are suffering because I have been there. I am talking about emotional suffering
and pain and each time I have come through and healed only by the grace and
power of God. The only woman that has never betrayed me, that has never ever
forsaken me and that has stayed with me through thick and thin is my wife Regina.
It’s a fearful thing to lose her because that’s the only person that I can
really trust with my deepest and most ugly secrets. She is not just a wife but
she is also a mother, a sister and most importantly a friend. We discuss
everything. If you come and tell me she did something wrong I will tell you,
‘it’s a lie, I know this person’ I can take that to the bank any day, anytime.
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| Femi Fani-Kayode's wife |
Five times my heart has been broken. You want me
to go through each one? I have never spoken about these issues publicly before
but today I will do so. I want people to hear about my experiences and learn
from them so that they don’t make my mistakes. I was married twice before. The
first time I was married to a wonderful person by the name of Saratu Atta who
is the mother of my first daughter Folake. Folake is a big lady now.
Today she is a lawyer in one of the top firms in the U.K.. She’s twenty
five years old now, a brilliant young lady. I was married to her mother but
things didn’t work out. That was in 1987. After two years we split up and she
went back to Ghana. Her mother is Ghanaian and her father is a Nigerian by
the name of Alhaji Adamu Atta who was the former governor of Kwara State during
the Second Republic. I loved her then and I still love her today.
She’s a good friend of mine but when the marriage failed, I was totally broken
and shattered. We had wanted to come back together again but at that point
hearts had hardened, one thing happened after the other and that was the end of
it. Yet I never stopped loving her and till today there’s a small space in my
heart that’s just for her. There’s a little corner of my heart that
belongs to her alone. We are very good friends and that’s a good ending for
that one even though the marriage failed.
Then came Yemisi Adeniji whom I got married to
in 1990. The marriage was stormy right from the start. It didn’t go too well
and unfortunately after struggling to make it work for four years we eventually
separated and later divorced. Though she had three beautiful children for
me, the marriage did not last and we did not part on the best of terms.
It was very bitter and unpleasant. I was not an easy person then and the truth
is that I put her through hell with all my strange behaviour, strange habits
and strange ways. To make matters worse we were both very headstrong and very
tough- she was a lawyer and so was I. I hope that I have not said too much here
because it is not my intention to hurt anyone with this interview or to rake up
old wounds. I just feel that it is time to open up just a little and settle all
the misconceptions and speculations about my private life and what happened in
the past. This is the most difficult interview I have ever given but I will go
ahead since I gave you my word. Nam (that is what I used to call her
then) and I parted ways under very acrimonious circumstances because I felt
that she just deserted me at my time of need and things have never been good
between us since then. We married in 1990 and we separated at the end of 1993.
Yet despite the failure of our marriage and the strained relationship that we
have always had, I thank God for our special moments together and for the fact
that we at least brought three beautiful children into this world. Despite all,
she too still has a little corner of my heart and when our marriage crashed it
wounded me deeply. I often hear about the bitter and painful things that
she says about me everywhere but I will never respond. She can say that I am
the devil incarnate and I will never respond. You know why? Because we were
once married and I loved her for 3 turbulent yet wonderful years. I still love
her to a certain extent because she is the mother of three of my children. I
will never forget that. I will never hurt her. I will always wish her well and
God will continue to bless her even though I honestly believe that she hates me.
There is a thin line between love and hate and she just flipped over it at some
point. What happened in those two failed marriages was that I was a different
person. I take full responsibility for the failures of both. I was not
the easiest person to be married to then and I was not the best of men. I went
through a transformation process when I went to the Bible Seminary in Ghana in
1993. So everything about me pre-’93 was very different to post-’93. Post-’93 I
was a different person. My values were different, my outlook to life was
different, my politics was different and my attitude to people was different. I
didn’t know God before going to the seminary even though I hail from a long
line of pastors. I was a very difficult person then and I just loved to enjoy
the good life, to party, to play polo, to drive fast cars, to do politics and
to drink champagne.
Worse of all, I was a chronic womaniser and for
some reason women seemed to love me so much and I loved them back with
equal passion and depth. I was a wild young man that had everything
that money could buy and I assure you that this was nothing to be proud
of. I was good, I was smart, I worked hard and I did well at school and
at my job but I just didn’t believe in the power of God then and that was my
greatest mistake. I was an unbeliever- an intellectual barbarian. I didn’t
understand these things until I had my encounter with God when I went to Ghana in
1993. The point I am making is that I wasn’t the easiest person so I do not
blame those twoo ladies for anything that went wrong. I blame myself. They had
their own fair share of issues and complicated behaviour but I will never say
those things publicly. I am the man and I have to take full
responsibility for everything that went wrong and I wish them well. So those
were the first two times that my heart was broken.
Thankfully I met my real wife Regina in
1993 in Accra and we got married in 1997. She stood by me through
thick and thin. Through the most difficult times and through the best times.
Then a few years later I failed her and made a terrible mistake which had
terrible consequences for my marriage and almost destroyed it. I got involved
with a young lady and had what the French describe as an ”affaire de coure”
with her. I take no pride in what I did or even in sharing it with you
here but it is a matter of public knowledge so I am telling you nothing new and
I hope that when your readers hear what happened to me they will not end up
making the same mistakes that I did. For a couple of years I became deeply
attached to this young lady. I will refer to her as ”Omo C”. I got very close
to her and we fell in love. Eventually things did not go too well for us
because I was not prepared to take a second wife and then she took one or two
steps which disappointed me and that was it. That is how it all ended. Even
though I felt deeply hurt by her and that we may never speak again, I have to
say that she was a wonderful person, she worked extremely hard, she was very
loyal to me up until the end and I will not say anything ill about her
publically. A lot of things you see about her on the internet today, the things
they wrote about her are not even true. It was an error of judgment on my part
to have any kind of affair when I was married and it’s something that I regret
deeply but the truth is that for some time that young lady brought joy into my
life and I fell deeply in love with her. That was the only time in my
life that I ever came close to taking a second wife and I pray that it never
happens again.Thankfully my wife prayed me out of that situation, continued to
love me, forgave me, helped me to heal and saved our marriage and family. She
forgave me and I haven’t looked back since. I have nothing bad to say about
that young igbo lady as an individual. She made her choices and we will leave
the rest to God. As far as I am concerned a lot of things you see about her on
the internet are not true. I won’t even go into those things or discuss them
here but we should cut her some slack. She’s just a nice person who wants to
live her life quietly and move on with it and I wish her well. Yet the
pain of our break-up was terrible though it was the right thing to do. And
whether anyone likes it or not the truth is that she still has a tiny corner of
my heart as well. She will always be a friend even if we never see each other
or speak to each other again.
I was involved with somebody else through the
years when I was alone here in Nigeria and separated from my family
though it was something that did not in any way threaten my marriage. A good
friend of mine became very close to me. I will refer to her as the ”God-Sent
Child” and she came from the Mid-West though she had lived in Lagos all
her life. We were very close for a number of years and she was a great source
of comfort for me throughout that period but the time came when we had to part
ways. I had to consider the implications of our friendship on my marriage and
she had to move on with her life and go and do her master’s degree in the U.K..
She’s finished now. She did very well. She’s back in Lagos now, doing
very well and moving on with her life. I hardly see or hear from her these days
but I am proud of her, I am happy for her and she’s a wonderful person. She
will always be part of me as well and again a little portion of my heart still
belongs to her. That’s four. The fifth one, the only other woman that I ought
to mention, I will not say much about publically for a number of reasons. She
is somebody that I will refer to here as ”Tranquility”. She is an enigma. She
is a good friend of mine and I am telling you that she is what they call a
smooth operarator. More importantly wherever she goes she brings peace and
tranquility and she is one of the kindest souls that I have ever met in my
life. I will not say anymore about Tranquility than that. So now you have heard
it all I hope you are happy. I hope that you will learn from my
experiences and mistakes instead of making yours.These are a very serious
issues and the emotions and memories that they invoke are powerful and
deep. The general point is that I have made my own fair share of mistakes and I
have learnt a hard lesson from those mistakes. I have made my peace with my God
and with my wife and that is all that matters to me. I suffered plenty of
heartache and caused enormous pain to others as a consequence of these series
of events, my actions, my behaviour, my choices and my clandestine
associations. Such complications are best avoided and such actions are best
avoided. Being a real man is about loyalty, faithfulness and fidelity to the
one you love and not about jumping into bed with different women.
If my choice had been to leave my wife and
settle down with any of these other women I could have done that three times
over now but I have chosen not to do so but rather to stay with my wife. I made
that choice even though I do not deserve her. That’s the point I am trying to
make. I could have followed somebody else but no I made that choice rather than
say I am going to break my marriage or betray my wife by taking a second wife.
I will be loyal to my wife and let the other person move on to a better life
for themselves. That for me is the triumph of love because if you really love
somebody you have to let them move on to a better life and not put them in a
situation whereby they are second wife to you. And if you really love your wife
you will never toy with the idea of taking a second one. These 5 women all have
a tiny portion of my heart but my wife has the rest of it and trust me when I
tell you there is plenty of it left. She has at least 95 per cent of it and on
top of that she has my body, spirit and soul as well. I hope that your readers
can learn from my mistakes. If you have a good woman or a good wife please hold
on to her at all costs and never let her go no matter what.
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