How I wooed my wife – OAP IK Osakioduwa

OAP and Big Brother Africa host, IK Osakioduwa has opened up on the dramatic way he met and wooed his heart-throb, Olohi. IK disclosed to Entertainer that the journey down the aisle began after he had a chat with a nosy aunty who wanted him to meet a particular girl she believed would make a great partner seven years before they tied the knot!

“I have this aunty who told me about this pretty lady called Olohi,” IK as he is popularly known in the industry began. She said ‘listen IK, there’s this girl you have to meet, she’s your wife.’ And I was like ‘really? Look at me? Do I look like someone who’s looking for an arranged marriage? I was embarrassed!

“I told her I didn’t want to meet anyone but this aunt of mine was pretty convinced the lady she had on mind was my Mrs. Right and she would stop at nothing to hook us up. I said I wasn’t interested and pushed the whole matter behind me.”

However, a short while later, IK, who was then studying at the University of Lagos (Unilag), started visiting LASU often and since his aunty had informed him that Olohi was a student of the institu­tion, he had his eyes peeled for her.

“Something cropped up and I started visiting LASU a lot. Then I was schooling at Unilag. I asked a friend of mine about her and he said he knew her and I told him I wanted to meet her. The idea was just to get my aunty of my off my back. Eventually he brought her over and we became friends.”

Struck

If anything happened during their first meeting, it was the chemis­try that flowed between them. Recalling that first time IK contin­ued: “When I met her I was like wow! She’s pretty and nice, so we became friends. Back then I was dating someone else and because I’m not good at double dating, I didn’t make any move and so we just remained friends; we were just buddies talking, hanging out having a nice time.”

Break-up

However, IK says his relationship with his lover soon ran into troubled waters. Reason, she was not down with his job as an enter­tainment person.

Recounting the circumstances that led to the break up IK contin­ues: “The lady I had been dating back then was having issues with me because of my job. She wanted me to quit entertainment because she wasn’t really in support of my entertainment career so we were having issues. All the while I kept thinking, ‘why can’t she just be like Olohi. The reason was that Olohi was everything I wanted in a woman.’ Eventually we broke up and went our separate ways.”

Hook-up

IK say it was then it struck him that Olohi deserved more atten­tion and so he made the first move: “I called her up and we chatted. Then she was dating a mutual friend of ours so when I talked about spending the rest of our lives together she was like ‘aahh, you know who I’m dating.’ But I said ‘listen, I’ve been thinking and I think you and I are good friends and we can probably be good friends for ever. I’d like to explore the possibility of being your husband and being married to you.”

However she insisted and that was in a relationship and that’s when IK played his joker!

That voice that has sent millions of women across Africa swooning booms as he speaks: “I said ‘I’m not saying you should break up with him but from what I can see, that guy I think is not serious so when you people are done, come and talk to me.”

And that was exactly what happened a month after. They broke up and Olohi ran straight into his arms!

Ike did not waste time as he quickly perfected plans to make her his wife and so he started planning the best way to pop the question. IK says he wanted something special and that culminated in his taking a trip to the UK just to propose to her.

In retrospect IK says: “Before I travelled I went to meet her dad and told him about my plans to marry his daughter. I also went to get her mum’s permission to propose to her. Then she was in school in South Athens in the UK and then I boarded the next available flight!”

As soon as he got to London, he approached a popular cinema and arranged to have the question spring up in the middle of an advert just before the next movie began. His plan was to go on his knees and ask her to marry him once the question sprang up on the screen. Two days to D-Day the cookie came crumbling after the cinema called him up and warned him that if he arrived late at the venue, they won’t replay his proposal.

“I thought it was too risky and I didn’t want to take chances so I dumped the idea. That was how I planned with her friend to con­vince her to come to London from South Athens. Now my wife is a bit strong willed so it wasn’t so easy to get her to come to London. When she came I told her I had come all the way from Nigeria to have lunch with her. Meanwhile, I’d already planted the ring in a restaurant with some Japanese guy. I told him when we are done he should bring it with the bill.”

When they got to the restaurant, the guy welcomed them and escorted them to their seats but as soon as they were seated his future wife dropped a bombshell: “I’m so touched that you came all the way from Nigeria to do lunch with me but I just had one big lunch and I can’t eat!

Panic

“I panicked and the Japanese guy panicked,” IK recalls. “The Japanese guy blurted out in smattering English ‘no you must eat, you eat small, you eat little but you must eat!’ But my wife was like ‘no, I don’t want to eat. I’m not eating.’

“It became a struggle and my Japanese friend was dragging her so hard she shouted ‘leave my hand. Nonsense, I don’t want to eat!”

Alarmed that the situation could spin out of control, IK says he had to intervene.

“Calm down! Calm down!’ IK shouted. He knew that if he didn’t calm the situation quickly he won’t be able to propose.

“I knew I had to think fast. I turned to my wife and said ‘since you’ve had lunch, can you do dinner?’ She said yes, but she was afraid it would affect my trip back to Nigeria because I wanted to fly out that night so I could make it to work the next day.

“Don’t worry, I’d reschedule,’ IK hastily says he said, happy that all was not lost. “I was so glad I could save the situation and the Japanese guy was all the while saying to my wife ‘good, good, you come back for dinner, you eat something.’”

Popping the question

IK says that later that night, amid the soft glow of candles, his dream finally came true when he proposed to his wife.

“After we finished dining, the bill arrived and the ring was inside it. We were arguing over who would pick up the tab and then she opened it and saw the ring and she was like ‘oh my God!’

“I knelt down on one knee asked her if she would be my wife and we would spend the rest of our life together and she was still, like she was in a trance. And then the Japanese guy came and hit her saying ‘Madam, say yes, just say yes!’

“The entire restaurant was watching, people were wait­ing, you could have heard a pin drop as I waited for her response, meanwhile, I was down on one knee and my heart was racing and it was like taking forever. And then she just screamed ‘yes!’ I was so glad I almost collapsed with joy.”

Marriage

The pair finally tied the knot in 2008 and today, the mar­riage is blessed with a child.

BY TONY OGAGA ERHARIEFE