Betsy Obaseki, the wife of Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki, has responded to remarks made by former governor and APC chieftain Adams Oshiomhole, who referred to her as “barren.”
Oshiomhole had made the comment last week in response to Mrs. Obaseki’s suggestion that, among the candidates for the upcoming September 21 governorship election, only the PDP candidate had a wife. Oshiomhole interpreted her statement as an indirect criticism of his party’s candidate and retaliated by referencing her inability to have children.
“I was shocked yesterday to see Mrs. Obaseki, the first lady, saying that our candidate has no wife. She is the most…I’m sorry that she has to say that, because here is a woman who has no child. Between him and Obaseki, they have no child, they are childless. They are not even ready to adopt. I mean, I don’t blame anybody who should not have a child. But people who have love for children, they go to motherless homes and adopt children.
They have not adopted, they are both in their 60s. So you married, I don’t know whether it’s a contract or whatever it is, but they have no child. Now our candidate not only have children, he has invested in the education of those children, such that you watch them on live television, covered by your media stations, where the first one that spoke is a lawyer, the second one is a medical doctor, and they had dressed the crowd in a Edo South, in a Edo Central, in Edo North, and their mother was there.”
In response to his comment, Mrs. Obaseki spoke at a women’s meeting on Saturday, September 7, emphasizing that no woman should feel ashamed of being called barren. She stated:
“I would like to say to every woman or sisters if you feel hurt by whatever you heard. I haven’t paid much attention to it. My word of comfort to those of you sisters, who like myself, had conceived and had miscarriages, who like myself had had painful evacuations of her babies who had died in her womb..I had suffered one such misfortune, who like me had conceived and birth the babies and who died perhaps at birth or at different stages in life, who had conceived, miscarried, suffered evacuation, who as we speak today do not have children to show for the trauma and the pain that we have experienced in life.
My word of comfort to you is that you are not barren so don’t be hurt if anyone calls you that or calls your fellow woman that.
I dare to call you fruitful. You and I are potential, budding, and proud mothers of children that will come in God’s time. Hang in there. Hold your head up high. You are not barren. Enjoy the life God has given you in the mean time. Thank God for a loving spouse like I have. I say I have the best husband in the world”
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