Business woman, Regina Fani Kayode nee Hanson Amonoo who is the third wife of former aviation minister, Femi Fani Kayode, is oepning up for the second
Business woman, Regina Fani Kayode nee Hanson Amonoo who is the third wife of former aviation minister, Femi Fani Kayode, is oepning up for the second time on her marriage to the controversial politician.
Regina who had earlier broken her decades long silence in defence of her husband who was alleged to have physically assaulted his fourth wife, Precious Chikwendu, leading to her moving out of their matrimonial home, is this time, opening up about her relationship with co-wife, Precious and why she allowed Fani-Kayode marry her despite their 23 year old union which she reiterates is rock solid.
Regina who lives in Ghana and is the daughter of an influential clergy in Ghana said,she actually used to reside in Nigeria until a when she had to put her daughter in school in Ghana. This prompted her going back and forth between Nigeria and Ghana every week.
But rather than return to Nigeria and stay with her husband, she chose to remain in Ghana
“After a while, it became a little bit too stressful, so our visits reduced to like one weekend in a month, then one weekend every three months and all. With all the political activities in Nigeria and everything, it was also a better environment here in Ghana than in Nigeria,” she told PremiumTimes.
My daughter was already a teenager at the time I left Nigeria for Ghana and at that age, they start socialising and if you’re not there to watch over them if anything happens, you won’t be able to blame anybody but yourself. Also, I didn’t want to interrupt her schooling. Another thing is that she never liked any of the Nigerian schools that she was attending, so she insisted on being in the same school as Folake. Folake is Femi’s first daughter. They got on very well so, from a very young age, she was always insisting.
Regina also revealed that her husband only just paid Precious’ dowry February this year after four children with a traditional marriage.
“I felt it was the right thing to do because they have four children and it is only right for him to do the right thing. I am still married to him, I am his legal wife and everything but the circumstances demanded a little bit of you know, and because of the children.
“He introduced Precious to me from the very beginning, he told me that he was a bit lonely and he needed somebody. You know he likes talking and so he needed company all the time. I understood because I knew that he was lonely and I wasn’t there.”
Contiuniung, she said, “Femi is a great guy, he’s wonderful, a great husband, and everything but that won’t stop him from occasionally cheating. So, I’m not the type that will say if I’m there 24/7, it will stop him from doing that. I am a very practical person, I wasn’t going to risk watching over my daughter to stay with him because if it will happen, it will still happen anyway.
“It is better for him to be upfront about it and tell me I like this girl and everything rather than sneaking around and all that. So, when he introduced this girl (Precious) to me, I liked the girl because she was nice and all that. I completely loved her, we got on like a house on fire, and we were like sisters. She was like my baby. We were very close to the point that any complaint that Femi ever had, I won’t even hear it. Whatever she says was what I’ll insist Femi does for her. She was very demanding but I thought it was because of her age. I didn’t mind, she was like my little sister.
Naturally, she became lonely living all by herself in Ghana but she kept busy with her interior decoration business the ministry work and then watching over her daughter.
On why she decided to go public after several years of keeping away, Regina had this to say, “If anybody goes through Femi’s page, his Facebook page, they will realise that up until Precious came into the picture, he always posted my photos on his page and everything. I am a very private person, I don’t like that kind of exposure. Why did I come out now? I came out now because, for years, one of his ex-wives had posted stories against him because she was very bitter. She posted stories about all sorts of things, domestic abuse, and whatever. But the two of us totally ignored it because it wasn’t true. We never addressed it publicly.
“The sad thing about it is that she never posted any story about what she claimed Femi did to her. She created a fantasy scenario of Femi attacking me, beating me and me attacking his first wife, who was also divorced by him. She created all kinds of scenarios, crazy ones and we never did anything about it. Over the years, people have assumed that it must be true that he is a violent man who beats up his wives and it is stuck in people’s minds. And as far as they are concerned, he has been married three times and he beats up all his three wives and they all left him. And that was completely false. It wasn’t true.
“The first wife whom he divorced got married to him when he was twenty-two but it didn’t work because of some reasons. She has never posted anything about any abuse anywhere. He married the second one, she was the one that was posting all these things and then I came into the picture and he has never abused me or anything. I am not divorced from him, I’m still with him.
Even though Regina always mediated in every argument they have had in the past, she however was unable to mediate in the current issue that warranted Precious moving out.
“I haven’t spoken to Precious since the incidence. I will not talk to somebody who wants to destroy my husband. The last time I talked to her, that was when we were trying to settle the entanglement case. She made statements that made me realise that she wasn’t truly what she pretended to be. She made statements like she was going to scandalise him and destroy his political career.
“Back in November or December, something happened which I don’t want to go into details. Something like an ‘entanglement’ by Precious and I still intervened. I spoke to her to get her side of the story but there was no way to get her out of it. For the first time, I was really angry with her but I still got Femi to calm down and not to react or send her away or break the relationship. It was very very difficult for Femi and at that point, he felt like I was not sympathetic to his feelings but I felt like it could be handled. It was bad but at the same time, it could be handled.
“I and a lot of people talked him into keeping her (Precious), in spite of the situation. At that point, her dad was in the hospital dying and Femi is the person that finances his medical bills. So, if he just lets go, the man’s medical bills, his burial, everything was going to be a disaster. We had to just push him into just cooling down and accepting to go about it in a different way, instead of even allowing the situation to come out.
“After that situation, a lot of information now came out which was even worse than that entanglement, bordering on life and death. After that one came out, I was like, I mean, it can’t go on because if you can’t trust somebody with your life, you can’t be with that person. That was when I actually broke off with her. I told her no no no, I cannot continue being on your side when it comes to life and death.
