I wanted to talk to someone who went to unbelievable lengths for love. That’s how I met Mrs. Mosope*(52), a woman who stole from her mother, travelled across continents, and spent two decades chasing a man who abandoned her.
This is Mosope’s story, as told to Betty:
I met Adekunle in early 2000, and we started dating almost immediately. He was tall, handsome, and charming, and whenever we went out together, women would always admire him.
We didn’t come from money, but we were happy. Some of my favourite memories from that time are of him buying rice from my favourite bukka at Ikeja and bringing it to me at my mother’s shop in Mushin. Within the year, our families knew about our relationship and our plans to get married.
In mid-2001, I found out I was pregnant. My mother was furious, but Adekunle accepted the pregnancy and promised to do right by us. The problem was that we did not have a lot of money, so we couldn’t even afford to get a place of our own. Having a child out of wedlock at that time wasn’t like it is now — I faced a lot of abuse and mistreatment. My mother threw me out of the house, saying that if I could get pregnant before marriage, I could also sort myself out.
Adekunle still lived with his family, so I moved in with a friend in her self-con in Yaba and started an apprenticeship at a hairdressing salon. It was a struggle, but I eventually got really good at doing hair and even started my own business in Yaba — although I had to share a shop with a tailor to afford the rent.
In March 2002, our first child — a boy we named Dare — was born. He looked just like his father, and we were very happy. My family warmed up to us after the baby was born, but my mom insisted that I couldn’t move back into her house. She kept pressuring Adekunle and I to get married, but after paying the hospital bills and hosting a small naming ceremony, we couldn’t even afford a registry wedding, let alone the elaborate owambe our families had in mind.
One day in May 2002, Adekunle and I were discussing the future. He had always talked about emigrating to America, but a lack of funds had held him back. When I was pregnant, he had scrounged up enough money for a visa but got scammed by the agent he used. That day, he complained bitterly to me about how much he wanted to make a good life for me and our son, and if he could just touch down on American soil, he was sure he would make a lot of money and bring us over to join him.
His passion was infectious, and I started thinking about how I could help him raise some of the money. But I had nothing valuable to sell, and I didn’t know anyone who could loan us the amount we needed. Then I remembered that my mom had been buying gold pieces since I was little, keeping them under her bed as savings. I knew selling them would fetch a good sum.
So, I visited her under the pretense of letting her spend time with her grandson. As she cooed over Dare, my hands were shaking. I swallowed my fear and slipped into her bedroom, heart pounding in my chest. I hesitated for only a second — then grabbed it all.
I made about four million naira — enough to pay for a tiny apartment for the baby and me, as well as Adekunle’s visa, travel, and initial expenses.
Adekunle and I were ecstatic, and in December 2002, he left for Chicago. Our plan was simple: he would work for six months, save enough to replace the gold, and send me the money so I could return it before my mother realised it was missing.
Six months turned to eight, then a year passed, and Adekunle still hadn’t sent a dime home — not for the gold, not for the baby.
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In March 2004, I called him because he hadn’t reached out for our boy’s birthday and a woman picked up the phone. Confused, I asked after Adekunle, and she casually said he had gone grocery shopping. Then she introduced herself as Clara and had the audacity to ask if I was one of Adekunle’s sisters “back home in Nigeria.” I hung up without responding.
I called my close friend in Ibadan, crying because I didn’t know what to do. If there was another woman in America with Adekunle, was I not ruined? How would I care for my child? At the time, I could barely afford to feed or send him to school on what I made as a hairdresser. My friend encouraged me to visit her in Ibadan with my son, so I did.
While I was in Ibadan, everything got worse.
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I hadn’t heard back from Adekunle yet and was getting more anxious. So when my phone rang, I picked it up without even checking the caller ID. It was my mother — she had found out about the missing gold. She knew I had to be the one who took it because the only people who knew about it were her own mother and me, her firstborn. She started screaming and cursing at me, threatening to get the police to close down my shop if I didn’t bring her gold back. I fell to the floor in my friend’s house, crying. I felt completely lost.
My friend was furious on my behalf. Without hesitation, she picked up her phone and called Adekunle. Surprisingly, he answered. She told him my mother had found out about the gold and that if he didn’t want us to go to a babalawo to ruin his life, he had better start sending money that day. He then explained that he was only with Clara for the green card and that once his citizenship was finalised, he would divorce her and marry me like we originally planned.
My friend also called my mother and apologised on my behalf because I was too scared to talk to her after that first phone call. Somehow, she managed to de-escalate things until I felt safe enough to return to Lagos. I was so grateful to her for all she did.
Before I left for Lagos, my friend had a serious talk with me. She said if I didn’t want to lose Adekunle, I had better go and scatter whatever he was trying to do with this Clara person before it was too late. I took her advice very seriously.
On my return to Lagos, I started doing odd jobs along with my hairdressing to try to get the visa and flight money for me and my son. In 2008, I had finally made enough money for the visas. I paid an agent to help me with the visa applications, but he absconded and left me almost destitute. Thankfully, my friend in Ibadan had married a well-to-do husband, and they reimbursed me for the money.
Unfortunately, our US visas were denied. I was ready to give up, but my friend insisted I try again, but to the UK this time. Aside from the fact that the UK visa was cheaper then, she said it would be easier to get a visa to the US from there instead of Nigeria. She and her husband sponsored our UK visas, and in 2008, my son and I moved to the UK.
I continued my hairdressing business while Dare went to school, and two more years passed. During this time, I was paying my mother back for her gold and also saving up to reapply for US visas.
One random day, while on a bus to work, I saw the agent who had stolen my visa money in 2008. Without thinking, I lunged at him, causing such a commotion that other passengers had to intervene. I told them he had stolen my money and left my child and me homeless. To my relief, they took my side, telling him he had two options: return my money or deal with the police.
He panicked and agreed to talk, so we stepped off the bus and entered a café. I grabbed his bag and emptied its contents, discovering a ship ticket to America. When I confronted him, he claimed it belonged to another client. I seized it immediately, telling him that until he returned my money, his client wasn’t going anywhere.
Desperate, he proposed a deal. He said he could get me a valid visa to America — albeit under a false name — but it would only cover one person, and I would have to travel by boat, which would take a month.
By this time, Adekunle had gotten his citizenship after marrying Clara, but he claimed he couldn’t divorce her because she refused to sign the papers. She said she was in love with him and wanted to make it work. Even when he told her about our son, she didn’t care. When he told me this, my head was hot. I was willing to do anything to get to America, so I accepted the agent’s suggestion.
I begged my boss at the hairdressing salon to help me take care of Dare. I lied that his father was deathly ill in the US, but I couldn’t get Dare a visa, and I wanted to see him before he passed. She was very accommodating and agreed. I left the UK in 2010 to go to America by boat, and that was the last time I saw Dare in person.
On getting to America, it was easy to remind Adekunle of what we had. He ensured his divorce with Clara was finalised, and we moved to Texas later that year. In 2011, we were planning to move Dare to the US to be with us when I found out that I was pregnant again. We couldn’t afford both a baby and Dare’s visa, so we pushed it back by a year. We made sure to send money for upkeep to him so he never lacked in the UK, but we just couldn’t bring him over.
In 2011, we had a beautiful baby girl, Loretta — and then three more girls in 2013, 2015 and 2018. These pregnancies meant that we kept pushing Dare’s move to the US back further and further. In 2020, the lockdown happened. We called our son to apologise again for the delay and promised that once the travel ban was lifted, he would come over to join us.
By this time, Adekunle had started a software development job, and I had a beauty supply store in Nashville. But to our surprise, Dare said he had no interest or intention of coming over to the US to live with us.
I was confused. All the work we had done was to bring him to be with us. He hasn’t even met his sisters in person yet. I want all of us to live under the same roof, even briefly, because that’s what families do, right? But Dare inherited my stubbornness. He said if we send him the money, he won’t use it on a visa. He claims he has friends and other things in the UK, and he can’t leave them behind just because we’re finally ready for him to come over.
Initially, I was very angry. I thought he was ungrateful, and my absence from his life had allowed him to fall in with bad gangs in the UK. It was Adekunle that made me realise that we were at fault. We had been gone for so long that, of course, he didn’t feel attached to us. Since 2020, I have been begging him to at least visit the US so he can meet his younger ones. He says he’ll think about it and I think that’s progress. His father visited the UK in 2021, so they’ve met, but I haven’t seen him since 2010 and I have no idea when he’ll visit the US or if he even will.
I don’t regret coming to the US to be with Adekunle, but I regret not being more intentional about bringing our son over. If we had done that immediately after we had Loretta, maybe this situation would have been different. He’s his own man now, so I can’t force him to do anything, but I miss him so much. He said he might spend this Christmas with us, and I pray every night that it happens.
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