I was molested by a Catholic priest, while in secondary school- Lola Omotayo.

Lola Omotayo recently revealed at the Kinabuti
Dare2Dream Project in Lagos a secret part of her life
to help out young girls at the project.
Lola revealed that when she was in her secondary
school days, she was molested by a priest and she
could not tell anyone in her family.
She said that the situation repeated itself in a former
relationship before finally meeting Peter of P-Square
and then getting married.

Excerpts of her speech below…

“You shouldn’t let your past determine what your
destiny will be, we all have our past whether good or
bad or makes us unhappy, we all had a life that we
lived that we are not happy about, you shouldn’t let it
bother you from succeeding.
When I was a young girl in my early teens in high
school, I was molested by a catholic priest, i blamed
myself, i didn’t tell anyone because i was ashamed,
couldn’t tell anyone cos i felt everyone would blame
me, so i carried on the guilt and bitterness with me for
years. I was filled with hate and i became a angry
person, i was rebellious, i didn’t want to listen to
anybody…and because i wanted to be expelled from
school to avoid seeing this person, i would do so
many terrible things, everything around me was just so
negative, i felt i wasn’t good enough….
Anyway i moved on to the university, met the love of
my life and i’m like, okay this guy is cool, he loves
me…and then he started to abuse me….i was beaten
black and blue all the time, in front of friends, in
public and at a point i felt, you know what I am not
worthy enough, there is nothing about me that is nice,
nobody loves me but i hid this from my family….i felt
like a loser..so it was hard for me to focus..so one
day i woke up and said i am going to change my story
and i dumped that person, focus on my education and
decided to be serious and be something….i decided to
get a job and go to school full time in America…
I worked hard…my parents were sending me money
cos I didn’t tell them i was working but i was working
because i wanted to be independent…I didn’t want to
depend on any man or on my parents even though
they would have done anything for me…so i did all
sorts of job, i was a make up artiste, i worked in a
cafe, school library, i did so many things and i didn’t
realise that these jobs were building me up as a
person, building my resume, my confidence….people
began to like me because i was adding value to their
lives….at work i was excellent and so was i in school
and that built me as a strong woman…and at some
point, i sought counseling to get over my molestation
issues where i was made to see reasons why i wasn’t
at fault cos i was a child then…today I am
accomplished.
You can be whatever woman you want to be but you
have to believe in yourself, if they reject you today, it
doesn’t mean you should let your dreams die, you
have something unique about you.
Look at my husband, when i met him peeps were like
what are you doing with him, he has nothing but i
stood my ground and choose to stick with him cos he
had a dream. He and his twin brother did not let their
dream die, they worked hard..look at them today! I
stuck by him cos he had focus and drive and today i
am happy, i have a good life, we are happy and we
have got a beautiful family. No one can make you a
loser.”
Lola is married to Peter Okoye of the P-square fame,
they have two kids together.