Just a few months back, Azeezat Popoola and her partner, businessman Kabir Ademola, were deeply involved in a passionate romance, appearing inseparable.
Ademola, a haulage operator overseeing a fleet of trucks transporting goods for a multinational food and beverage corporation in the Ota area of Ogun State, lavished Azeezat, a mother of three and lotto agency operator, with gifts and financial support. He reportedly organized an extravagant birthday celebration for her, attended by his family and friends.
However, Azeezat’s life took a dramatic turn from joy to sorrow after Ademola allegedly parted ways with her. At the moment, her bubbly mien has been eclipsed by a strange illness that has rendered her speech incoherent, while she has also drastically emaciated.
Azeezat’s family alleged that Ademola has a hand in her worsening mental health problem. Her father, Chief Rasaq Popoola, a community leader and chieftain of the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) in Abule Egba area of Lagos State, said he suspected that Ademola might have a hand in his daughter’s illness.
He said: “My name is Rasaq Popoola, a native of Ilero, Oyo State. I am disturbed by my daughter’s sudden strange sickness which started about a year ago.
“Three years ago, Azeezat brought Ademola Kabir to me while I was hosting a meeting of my colleagues (OPC members) in the Agbado/OkeOdo LCDA.
“As soon as the chairman of my (OPC) zone sighted Ademola, he said he should leave, saying that he had a strange negative aura.
“About six months later, I received numerous calls from people that my daughter has started emaciating and acting in a manner that suggests she has been afflicted with mental illness.
“When I visited her at the place where she was running a lotto office, she ran away after uttering incoherent words. She also said that Ademola was responsible for her deteriorating mental health.
“She looked like someone that had been used for rituals, hence I want Ademola to explain what he has done to my daughter and release her from bondage, if he is the one behind it.”
Speaking at a parish of a Celestial Church of Christ where she was taken to for healing, Azeezat spoke lucidly but suddenly became incoherent, rendering her explanation inconsistent.
She said: “I was brought to this church by my father in January this year.
“They said I was acting funny, but I know what I am doing.
“They beat me up and took me on a motorcycle to a spiritualist in Joke Ayo area of Alagbado.
“On the contrary, I am hale and hearty; nothing is wrong with me.
“I am currently pregnant for Ademola. I am carrying a pregnancy of twins and the babies talk to me every day, acknowledging that Ademola, the alfa and king of Oyo, is their father.
“I have not done any pregnancy test, but I know that I’ve been pregnant for Ademola since last year.
“They just took me on Sunday and brought me to this church despite the fact that I was doing well in my business before now.
“I have never met Ademola before apart from seeing him in a photograph, but he impregnated me. He is a transporter.
“Like I said, I haven’t seen or met him before, but the twin babies are moving in my belly and having conversations with me.
“I also shared a bowl of pepper soup with a man called Elepo. But the pepper soup was spiked with a poisonous substance after which I began to experience failing health.
“I do not know the man that gave me the pepper soup, but I became relieved after prayers.
“I became pregnant in October 2023 after Ademola slept with me in March.
“Ademola’s wives were the ones behind my problem and sickness.”
One of the prophetesses at the church where Azeezat was undergoing healing said: “Azeezat used to be a good lady until her sickness started and she started acting funny.
“She would stand up when other members of our church were praying and would not comply with what members of the church were asked to do.
“The strange illness worsened after she became a recluse and we went to her house and prayed for her.
“We later brought her to the church for further prayers but she suddenly left on foot and we asked some members to trace her to her house where we later found her.”
Ademola, however, said he had no hand in Azeezat’s misfortune, saying that he only dated her for a few years before they parted ways shortly after the 2023 general election.
“Azeezat is my former girlfriend. She took me to one woman, a prophetess on a Valentine’s Day.
“The woman asked me to buy a set of chairs for her church but I declined because of my Islamic faith.
“She (Azeezat) was always disturbing me for money to pay tithes in the church, and I warned her against such obligation because she was just coming up as an entrepreneur.
“She would shake her body intermittently as if something was tormenting her, and at a point she asked me not to share same bed with her in her apartment.
“When I started noticing that she had health issues, I alerted one of her sisters to it but I didn’t know what happened to her thereafter.
“Her sister told me that she was having problems with her business and that might be the reasons for her health issues.
“But I insisted that there was more to her illness than meets the eye.
“All my warnings to her were the reason she took me as her enemy. I know my wife very well that she could not harm Azeezat.
“What actually led to our break-up is that around the last general election, she told me that she was asked to do seclusion at the church and requested that I visit her at the church because she was sick. But I refused.
“I told her that if she was sick and admitted in a hospital, I would visit her there, but I would not visit her in a church because a church is not a hospital where sicknesses are treated.
“When she left the church after her seclusion, she sent me one of my clothes and food flask left in her apartment.
“But I have a friend who lives around her neighbourhood and he was always seeing her whenever he was passing through her street.
“That friend of mine was the one that alerted me to her deteriorating health one day, and advised me to submit myself for medical test because he noticed that Azeezat had emaciated drastically.
“I told my friend that I had parted ways with Azeezat and that I could not have contracted any disease from her since we are no longer together as lovers.
“However, when people close to us continued to urge me to find out what was wrong with her, I visited her at the place she was using as lotto office and she cried while sharing her plight with me.
“She explained to me that she was battling hunger arising from loss of patronage of her business as customers were no longer coming to her office.
“She said she had to borrow the uniform her son, El-Amin wore to school and that she could not even complete the payment of her children’s school fees totalling N15,000.
“I requested for her bank account number and paid the money into the account so she could defray the fees.
“She also explained that she had no foodstuff at home and that she would need my assistance. I promised that I would send her some money for foodstuff and left her office.
“She had a row with a young PoS operator beside her office and I settled the matter for them and urged her to be friendly with her neighbour.
“The following day, I learnt that she was still keeping malice with the girl, and when I demanded an explanation for her recalcitrance, she rained curses on me.
“Out of anger, I told her that I could eject her from the office she was using for business since I was the one that paid for it.
“I asked her to refund the money that I gave her the previous day. She said she had spent the money and I left.
“I pray that God gives her a perfect healing, because she told me that she dated a man after she fell out with me and that she took pepper soup with the man, not knowing that the meal was laced with poison that made her to stool uncontrollably for hours at night.
“I can swear by taking radiator water that Ogun (Yoruba god of iron) should deal with me if I have a hand in Azeezat’s mental problem.
“I don’t have a hand in her health crisis and I am ready to swear by anything.”
