I’ve been unlucky with love –JERRILYN MULBAH, IDOLS WEST AFRICA GIRL

Idols West Africa revelation, Jerrilyn Mulbah, has opened up on how she almost aborted her only daughter who clocked 11 recently. In this chat with The Entertainer at the Congress Hall of Nicon Hilton Hotel, Abuja, Mulbah recounted her ordeal during the Liberian Civil War, how she fled to Nigeria with her Nigerian lover and how he eventually ditched her when she was pregnant.


Excerpts:

What have you been up to lately? 

At the moment, I work with a top radio station here in Abuja called We 106.3 FM. I am working as an OAP and I am doing a relationship programme called The Love Talk With Jerrilyn Mulbah. The pro­gramme is all about relationship and love. And one of the most amazing things is that I have proved that I can use my voice in diverse ways. I must confess I have kind of enjoyed Abuja; it is a calm and quiet town. I will definitely do music so don’t ask when (laughter).

How long have you been in Abuja? 

I have been here for a year and a couple of months. Basically, it has been work, house, church and school for me.

We understand that you are studying at the University of Abuja. What are you studying?

Peace Studies & Conflict Resolution. The idea is that I can go back home based on my charity work and contribute to my country someday. I am also running an NGO which focuses on young single mums and girls in high school.

Why single mums and girls in high school? 

The truth is that I am a single mum and so I can relate with some of the challenges they face. Every single mum you come across is fighting two battles at the same time. One is with the society which won’t accept her and two is all about the people who want to take advantage of her not necessarily be­cause they want to help her. The idea is to get single mums to go back to school, get vocational training and empower themselves. And for young girls, the idea is to educate them on sex related issues. We don’t talk about sex education much and sex educa­tion is different from biology because in sex educa­tion, you just don’t tell a girl that she should not allow boys touch her, you have to give her scenarios so she knows why she shouldn’t do this or that. I believe that if we empower our young girls with such knowledge, we save them the trouble of talking to people that will take advantage of them and also protect them from seeking sex education from the wrong sources; they don’t have to learn from their mistakes. In my case, I had a Nigerian who wanted to marry me, but when we came here he disappoint­ed me. He was duped in Liberia and I felt sorry for him and he looked like a nice person so when he said he wanted to marry me, I said ‘fine, but I would like to see your parents so that we could start properly.’ But unfortunately, the war came and it was a disaster because his true colour came out and I couldn’t deal with it. I came to Nigeria to see him and I could have just gone back to Liberia but the war broke out so I just had to stay back here. Well, enough of the relationship thing, I have since moved forward, my daughter is already 11-year-old.

What is it like being a single mother? 

(Laughter) I had my wedding cancelled this year because I have a daughter; I am a single mum. The guy didn’t back out but his dad did. His dad said ‘you know what son; you cannot marry someone who already has a child.’ And so at the end of the day, we had to cancel the wedding; it is just one of those things. A lot of people have the impression that if you are a single mum you are promiscuous but I don’t think so. There are women who are single mums today because that is just what they want. For others it probably could be because they had a ter­rible childhood or a divorce. And some may choose to be single probably because they were raped. There are many reasons a woman would want to be a single mum so it is wrong to judge them.

Why didn’t you go for an abortion?

I did not go for an abortion because of my belief; I didn’t think it was right before the eyes of God. Was I chal­lenged by the experience? Yes I was. In fact, there was a day my cousin told me to have an abortion because I had my whole life stretching out ahead of me and the child could be an obstacle, so I said okay. I had been thinking about what to do about the baby for a while and I was really agitated. That very night I dreamt I was in the farm and I heard a baby crying so I searched for the baby, found it and picked it up. The baby was very black and cute. I bathed her and put clothes on her and when I carried her to pamper her she said ‘please don’t kill me!’ I was like ‘what is this, is this child a witch?’ But she responded saying ‘I am not a witch, please don’t kill me.’ When I woke up the next morning I told my aunty who did not know then that I was pregnant. She said the meaning of the dream was that if I was going to have an abortion I would die, or I would never have a child again so I went on my knees and prayed about it. It is sad that people judge you because you have a child. There are women who have had countless abortions and done crazy things but people see them as normal because they destroyed life. Now I ask, why judge a person who has decided to bear the consequences of what happened to her be it a good or bad experience. I believe that there are young women who need help especially single mums; it is not easy emotion­ally being a single mother.

Would you say you have been unlucky with love? 

Oh yes, I have been unlucky with love. I won’t lie and it is funny because my job demands that I advice people who have relationship issues and it is amazing I am able to encourage them do this or do that and it works. I guess it is a case of ‘prophet, heal thyself.’ Sometimes I am like this socks. I heard from an inter­national matchmaker that matchmakers or people who handle relationship issues are not often lucky with love. However, she found love in her later years.

Idols West Africa was the plat­form that brought you to the lime­light and expectations were high back then but we never heard from you again. What is happening to your music? 

The truth is that in life, if one thing is not working, at some point, you look for something else. I know I came into the limelight through music. But then, if you have so many gifts and talents you work on them. I did Afro fusion which is my genre but I just felt I needed something more subtle, something more of me and not what is selling in the market right now. Besides, we also had managerial issues. I was like instead of just dragging on with my music career for a very long time not getting anywhere, how about go­ing into radio and following my passion for helping others. We had challenges back then, we kept saying we would shoot this video or that video and it just wasn’t working out managerially.

Tell us about your daughter, what does she mean to you? 

She means the world to me. Everything that I do, I do for her because I realise that as the child of a single mum, she also has her own fair share of challenges. One thing I do is that in whatever I do I ask myself the question, will this make her happy? Do I make her proud? Even if people tell her negative things outside because she has a single mum she could always say that my mum is the best mum in the whole world. And one of the things I have been able to impact on her is the need not to look down on people or judge anybody. Have I been challenged so much as to ask why I chose to be a single mum? Have I been challenged so much as to ask why did I have this baby? Yes, there have been moments when I have had to deal with terrible things people have said but I do not regret because of my daughter, the special gift which came into the world through me. I look back and I see many marriages that don’t have children, I see couples running up and down looking for children and then I appreciate even more this journey that God is taking me through. I just pray that I live out my full potential and purpose.

Could you describe your ideal man? 

Someone who does not allow society to get to him (laughter). I think my ideal man is someone who has a mind of his own, a man who is God fearing, one who will love me and love my child because I have never lied or hidden my child from anyone. My idea is if you want me, you must also want my child. If the reverse is the case then just keep moving. People have this lame idea that single mums are the most needy set of people. They believe that you need someone to take care of you; you need someone to do this or that or that for you all the time. Yes, everybody needs a help mate but for me, I am not looking for someone to give me the whole world. If you have the capacity, fine, but the most important thing is that my man has to be God fearing, someone who knows the Word of God and has it in him and is able to realise that anyone who is in Christ is a new creature because we all make mistakes. He should be responsible and financially stable. You can’t rely on your family or your father’s money; a man who does that is not for me. The challenge for me in Nigeria is that people are so judgemental. They don’t care if it has been so long ago you had your baby or how you feel. They don’t even care to know why you are in Nigeria in the first place; I have heard all kinds of things.

When you were coming to Nigeria to meet your lover’s family, what were your expecta­tions? 

I wasn’t in control of coming to see his parents; I was just running for my dear life at that time. My boyfriend was a Nigerian so this was the only place I could run to so I was hoping that at last, I will get to know where he is from; I really didn’t care if he was not financially okay. He said he did not have money and I said it was okay, let us start; it was just love that was driving me then but love has never paid-off for me despite my sacrifices but I still believe in love, I still believe in God and I still believe in people though they kind of let you down most of the time, people are people and they will always be people.

SOURCE: Sunnews