Wednesday makes it one year since Olubayo Adefemi, former Super Eagles defender, died in Greece in an auto crash while on his way to the airport to catch a flight to Nigeria to finalise details of his wedding to beautiful model, Folashade Adeshina. The wedding had been scheduled for May 26, 2011.
In this past 12 months, Folashade has passed through turbulent times...
The events that played out on that bright Monday, April 18, 2011, goes thus:
Folashade had gone to the market to buy foodstuff to prepare rice and stew for Adefemi, unknown to her that the player had died in a road accident. But then she got the bad news through a telephone call from her pastor, Ola Akintomide, while in the kitchen cooking; alas it was one call which would eventually change her life.
Adefemi was dead.
“Initially I thought it was a joke. I felt my pastor wanted to know if I really loved him,” Folashade said. However, 365 days later, the wounds left behind by the demise of the fallen player are still fresh in her memory.
“It’s been hectic for me since Bayo left me but what can I do? His death hurts me more now than when he just died,” she said.
“You know, it was like a movie to me then, but it’s now beginning to dawn on me.
It’s turning to reality and it gets me angry with life the more because I won’t be able to see my Bayo again? I miss him these days and I can’t hold it.”
Besides, she’s also been made to pass through the rough side of life. Friends, who once swarmed around her, have fled from her, leaving her to her fate. “I have faced a lot of challenges but I don’t want to mention names so that I don’t hurt anyone.
There were many people who feigned regard for me then but today, from their words and actions, you can see that I no longer mean anything to them anymore. I had so many friends then but where are they now?”
But she added that Olubayo’s family has given the necessary support. “We are very close especially Mama (Olubayo’s mother), Biodun (Olubayo’s elder brother) and Aunty Bukie (Olubayo’s sister) and I do visit them.”
For her initially, the fear of April 18 was the beginning of wisdom but she has found solace in the Lord.
“Then I always asked myself how would I face this dooms day? But this great loss has forced me to turn all my attention to Christ. And now I am enjoying the feeling of being in Christ.
“So now I see the day as a thanksgiving day because the Bible says ‘in everything give thanks to God.’ Everybody will die one day and death is not the greatest misfortune in life.
