| I’m a very jealous
man
By ONYEKABA CORNEL-BEST
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
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Edochies
Photo: Sun News Publishing |
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Handsome and youthful, Yul is the last son of Pete Edochie,
the Nigeria movie mega-star. He got married to his heartthrob
in 1998 at the age of 22 after six years of courtship.
Yul, who came with his pregnant wife along with his famous
father and Barrister mother to witness the wedding of his
in-law, Naval Lt. Commander Martins Aligwe and former Miss
Ipheoma Idike at Bishop Mcgertrick Pastoral Centre in Abakaliki
was the first to speak:
How we met
We met in 1998 when we were writing our GCE in the same centre.
Somebody introduced her to me. She was new in Enugu and was
searching for an accommodation. So, I offered to help her
and in the course of that other things happened (laughing
aloud). To the glory of God I helped her and also helped myself.
After we had dated for about a year I made up my mind to marry
her because she has all that I needed in a woman. So, right
from that year I had already resolved to marry her when the
time was ripe and that took us another five years.
Special qualities
Firstly, she is very intelligent. She made a second class
upper division in Computer Engineering. As you know that is
not a mean fit to achieve. She is very caring. She has all
the qualities of a good mother. She takes very good care of
me as you can see I look good.
Family consent
When I came home one day and told my dad that I wanted to
marry her, he was not surprised because at that point we have
dated for a long time so everybody expected us to get married
and again it was on record that my dad also got married very
early during the civil war. So, when I came up with the idea
of getting married at that age he felt that I was following
his footsteps so he encouraged me.
Marriage is not easy
It has not been easy but by the grace of God we are coping
and you know where there is true love every other thing is
secondary. Our major strength lies in the fact that we put
God first in everything we do and knowing that He is the head
of our young home, we just go ahead struggling. To tell you
the truth I am enjoying the whole experience. I feel so good
that she is pregnant right now and I can’t wait for
the baby to come out.
It is good for young men and ladies to start life early in
terms of marriage because, in the first place, when you look
at the present state of the world with regard to the AIDS
pandemic it is not advisable to keep jumping from one person
to the other. The end result can be very costly and it is
also an abomination before God . I would advise my fellow
youths to do their best and put their mind on one person and
finally marry such a person.
Dream home
I intend to grow the kind of home my father nurtured. After
36 years of marriage he is still with his wife-our mother-there
are six of us at home. We are still very close. He has a very
peaceful and lovely home.
Jealousy
It does exist in every relationship and I think it is even
worse in marriage. When you love someone you are bound to
be jealous. I am a very jealous person and same thing applies
to my wife but after one year of courtship we came to trust
ourselves to the fullest and at no time in the course of the
six years that we courted the jealousy or fear manifest from
any of us. This was despite the fact that we were in two different
universities. I was in UNIPORT studying Theatre Arts while
she was in Enugu State University of Science and Technology
reading Computer Engineering,
Temptations
There were temptations but I thank God that they passed over.
I don’t allow my being Pete Edochie’s son to get
into my head. I think in terms of what I can achieve for myself
and not what my father’s name can do for me. So I do
my best to be composed and knowing that a very good girl loves
me; someone that I know I hoped to marry. So, I always cautioned
and comported myself. I did not let anybody distract me.
Wife speaks
Grateful to God
I did not go to the GCE centre looking for a husband. It is
God that brought us together . I think God did a very interesting
and big job in making all this happen. I am not very good
at mixing with the opposite sex but when I met him he was
just different. He was everything that I needed from a man
and till now I am still very grateful to God for helping us
to sustain this union.
Overtures
While I was schooling in a different university from his I
was able to cope with overtures from other men by being tactful
and diplomatic.
Being young and married I feel just the way I felt on my wedding
day, the happiest person on the planet earth; you are young
and you have a husband that is also young, handsome and loves
you so much, there is nothing else you can ask for, because
this is exactly what many girls are dreaming of.
Wedding preparations
Our wedding preparations were quite tedious because we had
to do virtually everything on our own. Even my sisters were
pleasantly surprised. If you ever want anything to be well
done, then do it yourself, that was why we did most of the
thing on our own during our wedding preparations.
Be natural
For a woman to get the right husband she just has to be herself.
It is of no use pretending to be what you are not, don’t
be artificial in order to attract some attention to yourself.
Just be yourself because most guys are actually searching
for certain qualities. If you are natural you are most likely
to attract the right man to yourself.
Ideal family
I am looking forward to a family that is going to become a
reference point in the future, one that is peaceful and full
of happiness.
After having my baby I hope to go back to school to continue
from where I stopped. I hope to move further into Information
and Communication Technology because everything is going computerized
and I hope to be a key player in the industry.
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