Former chairperson of First Bank of Nigeria Ibukun Awosika has revealed that her mother was betrothed to a king in Cameroon but she left for Nigeria to marry her lover.
The co-founder and former chairperson of Women in Management, Business and Public Service (WIMBIZ) revealed this as a guest on Channels Television’s Amazing Africans programme. An excerpt of the interview was published on the broadcaster’s website on Saturday.
Mrs Awosika praised her father as a hardworking and supportive man who was “the epitome of contentment”.
Ibukun Awosika is my guardian – Tara Durotoye
She added, “My mother was the same in many ways. She had left her Cameroonian home at a very young age, she was about 18 when she left to marry the guy she had met. I think my dad had gone on some Man O’ War thing to Cameroon and they met. She had been betrothed to another king or something; her father was the king of their community.
“She came to Nigeria and they got married. My dad went to England to further his education and my mom was pregnant with me. She had my brother, she was pregnant with me and was waiting to have me when my dad left for school in England and so she waited, had me, and after I think barely a year, she left my brother and myself with my grandmother and she went to join her husband in England.”
The businesswoman said she was with her grandmother until her parents returned to Nigeria when she was six or seven years old.
