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For 38-year-old
Blessing Aseroma, being married to an abusive husband has being a
nightmare best imagined. In her over 12 year’s relationship with
Frederick Aseroma, 40, a popular Nigerian actor, the psychological,
physical, emotional, and financial scars she bears are a clear reminder
of the prevalent violence committed against women.

Despite unpaid
school fees, accommodation difficulties and an ongoing divorce process,
the mother of three still manages to smile as she chats with NEXT.

With support from
friends and Project Alert, a women’s rights non-governmental
organisation, she has moved into a two-bedroom apartment, and reopened
the child care centre which her husband allegedly despised.

The 1998 University
of Lagos graduate said her husband refused her to work, instead
insisting she ‘takes care of the home front’. She had become dependent
on him for her, and her children’s, every need.

“If I mention
there’s a job somewhere, he would say no, that the job is too demeaning
for a man of his personality. He did not allow me to do anything other
than raising babies. The only time I worked was for six months in 2004,
when he moved out with another woman,” said the Faculty of Education
graduate.

Mrs. Aseroma was
then nursing her last child. She relocated from Surulere to Ojodu, both
places in Lagos State, and got a job as a research editor in a
marketing company. Her husband later returned, seemingly apologetic,
and prevailed on her to quit the job.

“When he came back,
my son had gastro arthritis. He said because of stress I should stop
work until when the baby is one year old. That is how I stayed doing
nothing for five years till he went abroad,” Mrs. Aseroma said.

Strapped for cash
and unable to pay her children’s school fees, Mrs. Aseroma said she had
to concede to her husband’s demand for her to sign the divorce papers
because he was “under the threat of deportation” and the “only option
available for him to remain in the United Kingdom is get married to a
resident.”

Her turning point
came in January 2009 when a friend who owned a crèche needed a manager
to run the place. She took up the offer to the displeasure of her
husband. By March when the owner was relocating to Lekki and wanted to
close the crèche, the children’s parents pleaded with her to open her
own crèche.

“I wanted to use my
house but my husband refused. But by April, he called that he won’t be
having upkeep money to send to me, so I can start the crèche to cater
for myself and the children. That’s how I started Bloom Babies Crèche
on June 1, 2009,” Mrs. Aseroma said.

But by March 26,
2010, when Mr. Aseroma was arrested and detained at the Ojodu-Abiodun
Police Division, Ogun State Command, over allegations of wife battery,
she took a decision to break the abuse cycle.

“After Fred and his
younger brother beat me and I reported to Project Alert and the Police,
I had to abandon everything. I left my house that I part paid the rent,
took my children, and ran for my life. I only just reopened this
crèche, playgroup and after school with the help from the NGO and the
parents of the kids, who rallied round, and helped pay some of the
rent,” Mrs. Aseroma said.

Project Alert’s
executive director, Josephine Effah-Chukwuma, said under the
organisation’s support services Programme, legal aid, Police
involvement and financial assistance was given to Mrs. Aseroma to
enable her regain some control of her life after years of physical and
psychological abuse.

The NGO gave her
N100,000 towards getting a new accommodation to reopen the crèche, has
taken up the divorce case at the Lagos High Court in Ikeja, and has
involved the police to ensure Mrs. Aseroma is protected from further
violence from her husband.

“She is a graduate
but he didn’t allow her to work. Even the little crèche she tried to
run to raise some income for herself, he tried to deny her that.
Presently, he has changed the keys to their home and denied her access
to items that would ensure her economic independence,” Mrs.
Effah-Chukwuma said.

Thankful to Project
Alert, whom she described as “the family I don’t have”, Mrs. Aseroma,
an orphan and only child to parents who died while she was in secondary
school, however worries over how she’ll pay a house rent balance of
N300,000 and an outstanding school fees debt of about N150,000 for her
three children, aged six, eight and ten years.

“My landlady heard my plight and allowed me to pay half of the two
years rent. I am meant to balance her by April ending. My children’s
school have been supportive because they know my situation. But for how
long? My passion for children is in this crèche. If I lose this
accommodation, I lose the crèche, my children will stop going to
school. Where do I then go ?” Mrs. Aseroma asked with tears in her eyes.