Until very recently, the former beauty queen, Anita Uwagbale-Iseghohi’s pains were invisible and her cries were inaudible. She merely festooned the social space with her presence, using words that are only fit for the cultured. Then she wrote a short note on the social media and everything changed.
Other miseries only speak but heartbreak shrieks out. Yet each couple extinguishes the flames of their love, as it pleases them. Some do it with a bitter look, some with a flattering word. Some do it with a kiss and others by infidelity. Ask Tom and Anita; the estranged couple would definitely have their pick from the pack.
However, hardly anyone knew when sour music stole into the wedlock of the couple. But everybody knows when their marriage crashed. It was the worst thing ever. Friends and family watched in dismay as the harsh notes intruded the couple’s joy leaving them a mess of a peculiar mess.
When they got married years ago, many people thought that their wedding was made in heaven. Theirs was a seemingly blissful nuptial that Anita’s peers felt they were in her shoes, with some even wondering why she seemed to be the luckiest among them.
Curiously, however, when the going was good between them, they planned to build castles in the air, have a fortress of a home with their kids rolling and frolicking on the lawn while they hold hands and give themselves a pat on the back for shaming critics who thought the marriage would not last. The plans were lofty and lovely. Before long, the seed of discord began to germinate between them. Eventually, they parted ways thus going the way of most celebrity couples whose marriages crashed and burned in record time. Anita vacated their matrimonial home immediately.
Penultimate Thursday, Anita announced the couple’s separation on Instagram.“Following our almost 15 years relationship as well as a lot of recent thought and consideration, I have made a difficult decision to separate from my husband. We are still a family and will always be loving, dedicated parents to our three lovely children. “I won’t be commenting beyond this and I thank you all in advance for respecting the privacy of our young children and of our family. Love and respect from us to all of you,” she wrote, signing off as Anita Iseghohi.
In an interview, which Anita granted a few years ago, she recalled how she met her estranged husband.
She said, “It was during my reign and I had travelled to the Netherlands for the Miss Universe pageant. As I alighted from the plane in Amsterdam, I met him at the airport.
“I was laughing and making fun of people who are blacks but don’t want to be recognised as Nigerians. He was taking a nap when I looked at him. Then, I turned to Guy Bruce and Chinenye Ochuba and told them that the guy sleeping there is definitely a Nigerian. He woke up later and while discussing together, I found out that he was from my state—Edo state.
“He was also looking lost. To protect him from missing his way around Nigeria, I gave him my phone number and told him to call me whenever he had problems with locations. Of course, we started a relationship, which became very strong and he persuaded me to move over to the United States where he was based in order to continue my education.”
Many believed that the separation of the couple must have been as a result of the travails of Iseghohi, who is a former group managing director of Transcorp Plc.
When in 2007 the widely educated Iseghohi was recruited from America to head the controversial Transcorp by the former DG of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, Ndi Okereke-Onyuike, many applauded the decision and quickly touted him a corporate messiah.
He married the former beauty queen in 2008, a year before he was charged along with others with fraud and money laundering in connection with the botched acquisition of the Nigeria Telecommunications (NITEL) by Transcorp.
The Court of Appeal has discharged and acquitted him of the charges.
Iseghohi is founder of G-57, an association of 57 top Nigerian Executives from around the world and executive vice president at Hudson Consulting Group.
But all that waned when Iseghohi, a staunch catholic was made to go through ignoble acts and was dismissed from Transcorp.
This expectedly led to his obscurity from the limelight, leaving only his wife, Anita, former MBGN to continue her role as a social butterfly.
According to a source, “Anita may have lost the will to carry on in a financially challenged marriage and decided throwing in the towel. That she went on social media to announce it shows her desperation to leave Iseghohi, who seems to want to hold on to the union.”
