A few weeks ago, daring Nollywood actress, Chioma Ifemeludike made an open confession alleging that she had an amorous relationship with fiery Nigerian cleric, Johnson Suleman, of the Omega Fire Ministries Worldwide congregation and was paid for it.
Her confession met with lots of backlash and Ifemeludike went off social media for a while.
However, in recent interview with Pearls News, Ifemeludike maintained that her open confession would in no way affect her future plans to get married and start up a family, in fact that her fiancé asked her to do the public confession.
She said: “Confessing that I had sex with apostle Suleman Johnson jeopardize my chances of getting married? No, never! In fact, it is even now that more suitors are coming. I’ve always had suitors, I have suitors today and I will always have suitors, always because when you come close enough to know the person, you’ll be very glad to be attached to my life. I’m not worried, marriage is a done deal. That’s not even the issue. I can’t even marry a dumb person because it’s only a dumb person that’d say I can’t marry you because of anything. Why? Okay, are you trying to say if I didn’t say this thing, keeping quiet about my past, does it make me any better?Some people have done the worst things, terrible things. Are you even going to be happy that you are going to be with someone brave enough to come out to say ‘I did this’, own it and said but I don’t want to continue anymore? I think that’s even the best kind of wife or husband to have. People who are ready to spill the truth, whenever and at any cost. So, my suitors have even increased since the confession. I can boldly say that a husband is not the problem, it’s all about me. I’m the one to make the choice. I’m the one to decide who and when.”
On how her family and man, reacted to the news of her open confession, she recalled, “My fiance was quite supportive because he was the first person I confessed to and I told him everything and many more. And he’s been in the picture even before I got baptised, he knows my spiritual life, he knows my relationship with God then and now.
So, when it was time, I told him. I said, ‘this is what happened and I’m sorry. If you don’t want to continue the relationship, that’s okay and he said no, I even love that you are bold enough to tell me this. He then said, I want you to make it public, I can’t keep it down anymore. I said, fine. If that’s what’s going to help you, then who am I not to do it.
My fiance was very supportive and that I pulled through strongly, thanks to him. My family was tough, those calls, questions like ‘how can you do this, everyone was angry.
I thank God for our spiritual leader who told them that it was good. It might not be good for man but it’s good for God as He approves of it. My family was really supportive, I give to them. I don’t know how anyone could deal with such news, the news was everywhere, people who knew me, those we grew up together, the community where we grew up, the family from the village, our relatives, people kept calling my mother, my people and trying to get information and talks like ‘we heard what Chioma did’.”
Reacting to the allegations that she was only trying to extort Suleman Johnson of more money, the actress who is presently cooling off in London said, “That’s is laughable. The people who know me know that money does not freak me. What freaks me is character. Money, power does not move me. I need money but money is not everything. There’s a way I see life and there are things I value more than money. Extort who? How much is he going to give me? Do you know the guilt I carry all these years, for something that I did? I knew that I did it out of desperation, I did because I wasn’t acting right and so fast forward to today, I’m dealing with the guilt and I come out to spill it and I want to extort the person! I don’t know how it works o, but even if they bring one billion dollars here, I can’t be moved. The truth is the truth. It’s a fact, it’s bigger than me, the Universe has taken record and there is something bigger than the Universe, something bigger than money and something that put us here. We must always think beyond that. The day the world was created, the day everything you see was put together, money was not in the concept. Man conceptualized money and so, what would I want to do anything of that magnitude because of money, no, that’s totally wrong I never did to extort anybody. I just for my faith, so, children of God, I did it for my society and that I what will matter for decades, for centuries, that’s what will count, not money.”
