By Kate Halim
For 31-year-old Sophia Ogunkoya, love wasn’t on her mind when she met her husband. She was still recovering from a heartbreak following the breakup of a two-year relationship. She promised herself not to fall in love with any man again but fate played a fast one on her a year later.
According to Ogunkoya, she was dating a young man whom she considered the love of her life because he was her first love, but she didn’t know he was cheating on her with his neighbour. One day, he told that her that they needed to go their separate ways because he wasn’t feeling the relationship anymore. He broke up with her and told her never to contact him again.
“You can imagine how I felt. I was blindsided. I cried, begged, promised to be a better woman but he clearly told me we were over. I left his house that day feeling empty and wanting to die”, Ogunkoya said.
It was a month later that she discovered he broke up with her because he had impregnated his neighbour and didn’t want her to find out he was playing games. Ogunkoya revealed that she visited him unannounced and met his neighbour in his apartment with a protruding tummy. After getting all the answers she needed, she vowed never to fall in love again. After a year, she started dating another guy and things were going smoothly until she met a guy in the hotel where she lodged with her current boyfriend to celebrate his birthday. It was a chance meeting but it would change their lives forever. This guy also lodged at the same hotel with his girlfriend.
Ogunkoya told Saturday Sun that it was love at first sight and she never felt anything like it before. They met in the elevator and before you knew it, they were talking like old friends. When the guy got to his room, he winked at her and she found herself blushing. She quickly reminded herself that she wasn’t supposed to be flirting with a stranger but it was already too late. “I thought of him all day. I was absent-minded with my boyfriend. I wasn’t interested in the things he was doing or saying. I kept hoping to bump into my latest crush so that we could exchange numbers. The next day, we bumped into each other again and I took his number. The rest they say is history,” Ogunkoya revealed.
Ogunkoya started chatting and making calls with the man that stole her heart at first glance. Things started getting serious between them that they had to break up with their partners and focus on getting to know each other better. They got married one year after they met and any time they remember how they met and where, they burst out laughing.
Meeting in unusual places
Whenever Mr. James Okehi recalls how he met his wife of five years, he chuckles and shakes his head. It is a story he can’t wait to tell his two children when they are old enough to understand. He said that meeting his wife was one of the best things that happened to him but how they met wasn’t all pleasant. Okehi revealed that on one fateful afternoon, he went for lunch at a restaurant close to his office. He doesn’t like carrying cash around, he noted, so he took his ATM card with him. He didn’t know that he was about to suffer the embarrassment of a lifetime in a restaurant filled with people.
“After ordering my food, I brought out my ATM card like a boss and gave it to the staff who attended to me. She collected it and smiled at me. Seconds later, she informed me that the transaction was declined. I told her to try it again. She did and it was the same story”, Okehi stated. The hunger that moved him to the restaurant suddenly gave way to despair. He started sweating in a cold restaurant. He opted to use the ATM card to go and withdraw cash from an ATM close to the restaurant because the people behind him started making some funny noises about him, delaying them. One person even asked if they were sure he had money to pay for his food. It was embarrassing, he recalled.
Okehi left the restaurant and majestically walked to an ATM to withdraw cash, but it wasn’t dispensing cash. The sad thing was that his stomach was rumbling with hunger. He was lamenting about having such a bad day when a young lady approached him. She smiled and told him not to worry about anything. He recalled that she was in the same restaurant he left minutes earlier.
“Before I said anything, she told me to follow her back into the restaurant. She promised to pay for my food. I refused. I told her not to worry but she insisted. She stated that I looked very hungry and I didn’t have to allow my ego rob me of a good lunch”, Okehi said.
We got back into the restaurant and she paid for my food. Okehi promised to pay her back with interest. He collected her number and bank account details. That was the beginning of a love story that culminated into marriage two and a half years later. They got married and have two children together. Okehi said he is happy to have married such a kind-hearted woman who would pay for a stranger’s lunch with no strings attached. He feels blessed and lucky at the same time. Funmi Alao is a businesswoman who met her husband during a mutual friend’s birthday party. She told Saturday Sun that she didn’t want to attend the party because she just came back from a business trip but later changed her mind after the celebrant called to find out where she was.
Alao got to the party and sat all by herself because she was tired. She later tried to mingle with other guests and also dance to cool music. Later on, it was time for games but Alao didn’t anticipate what would happen next. Alao said: “During the games, a guy was asked to pick a lady and kiss her. The rule of the game was that if the lady refuses to be kissed by the guy, she would pay him five thousand naira. I told them it wasn’t a pleasant game but it was too late. A guy picked my name from the list of women in the party but I refused to kiss him.”
Sticking to the rules of the game, she collected his account details and transferred five thousand naira to him. Days later, the young man called her and introduced himself. He said he liked her and asked her out on a date. They met one week later and he asked for her account details. He transferred ten thousand naira to her and told her he wanted a relationship with her.
The whole thing happened like a dream, Alao said. They started dating and later got married. Five years down the marital road, Alao gushed about hitting the jackpot by meeting and marrying her husband. Even though their meeting was unconventional, she said that she took a chance by getting to know him better and it worked out fine. Okechukwu Onyekwelu has been married for two years. Even though marital life can be challenging sometimes, he believes he found his missing rib in his wife, Adaobi who is pregnant with their first child. Onyekwelu recalls how he met his wife at a friend’s wedding ceremony three years ago.
“She was the chief bridesmaid and I was the best man. The groom booked two hotel rooms for us. I shared a room with him before the ceremony while she shared the other one with the bride. After, the wedding, the bride and groom took the groom’s room while we were forced to share the other room,” Onyekwelu said. At first, he was angry with the groom for not booking another room for him but the chief bridesmaid didn’t mind. She calmly asked him if it was a plan between him and the groom to have them spend the night in one room.
He thought about it and came to the conclusion that their friends set them up. There was no other explanation that made sense.
Onyekwelu said that he decided to spend the night with the beautiful young lady and their love story started from there. They ordered food and drinks and watched football until it was late. He slept on the sofa while she got the bed. They exchanged numbers the next morning and started dating a month later.