Stella Damasus

As most of you already know Yinka Lawanson a.k.a Lamboghinny and I, were made NDLEA (National Drug Law Enforcement Agency) ambassadors on the 10th of December 2012 at the national headquarters. It was such a humbling experience for me as I began to appreciate the amount of work that this agency has put in, despite the challenges they have been facing. From what I saw there, it was obvious that they were under staffed and underfunded. This really hurt me because when I was walking in I saw loads of pictures of members of their staff who had died in the course of their drug busts. It is indeed a risky job and a sensitive agency.

I was honored because this is the first time in history for the agency to accept this kind of partnership, but at the same time I was hoping and praying that in the one year duration we have been given, we can make the kind of impact that is expected of us. The work is plenty but I believe that with God on our side and with dedication plus your prayers and support, we can help save the lives of future generation.
 

I was going to celebrate this as soon as I got back to Abuja but that excitement was shaky because of the report and the pictures I got the following day. It was a story on an artist known as Tiwa Banks, who was badly beaten by her landlords son and was cut by him with broken bottles. The pictures were so heart wrenching that I immediately started making enquiries.

TIWA BANKS

I am sick and tired of the violation of the rights of women and young girls in this country.
I am sick and tired of the fact that the so called human rights activists run away from issues concerning the Nigerian woman.
I am sick and tired of the fact that a lot of these stories are being swept under the carpet.
I am sick and tired of the fact that this is happening everyday and increasing in number because there is no justice.
I am sick and tired of worrying about my mum, sisters, daughters and friends because anything can happen to them at anytime and no one will speak up for them because it did not affect them directly.
I am sick and tired of begging and asking my fellow women and artists who have voices to speak up but most times, they turn around and laugh at me.
I am sick and tired of the fact that apart from people like Wierd MC, Kate Henshaw, Funke kuti, Madam Saint Matthew Daniels, Dorothy Njemanze, Josephine Effah chukwumah and some radio presenters; other prominent women act like they don't care.
I am sick and tired of the fact that we have female commissioners, ministers, church leaders, celebrities, lawyers, activists and yet it seems like nothing is being done about it.
I am sick and tired of the fact that reports are made and the country seems to move only when something happens to the family member of a prominent and rich person.

I just read a Report from Kenya where a man killed his wife, ate her liver and Forced their three year old to drink her blood. The story is available in reject online.
Nigeria is already at that point so if you are still living in denial thinking that it can never happen here, then please enjoy the pictures you will see soon.
Most of the people who commit these crimes were not born as monsters, eighty percent of the time they are induced by drugs which makes them act without feelings.
I am very worried about this generation and where we are heading to, especially because we live in a country where Nobody cares about the security and safety of the women, but when the time for election comes we will all be expected to campaign and vote for them to come into power.

Wow! Isn't that funny?

 As I celebrate this great partnership with NDLEA I am also pleading that we all stand up and fight against this violence, it sounds like a minor issue to people because it is not in their face.
Send me emails please and let me have your contributions, suggestions and advice as regards methods we can employ to make our voices heard.
 

Women cannot continue to be butchered and destroyed, we cannot continue to beg for protection in our own country, We cannot continue to look over our shoulders when we come out of our houses, we cannot continue to live in fear, we cannot continue to be silenced when we want to speak out, we cannot continue to die like chickens everyday, I refuse and so should you.

Quote: Empower a woman and you have fed a nation.

I had the opportunity and rare privilege of being the wife and partner of the most wonderful, loving, industrious, God fearing and kind man. Life could not have been better than that because I was living every woman’s dream.

The best of everything was at my disposal whether I lifted a finger to work or not. We had our ups and downs as usual but making up and resolving our issues, was magical. I was blessed with the best husband and father and his name is JAIYE ABODERIN. He was the love of my life and the one who did everything humanly possible to protect his family. Even in the face of all sorts of problems, all sorts of accusations, all sorts of misconceptions, he was one who understood the true meaning of for better or worse.

Jaiye passed away on the 3^rd of December 2004 at a time our dreams and projects were about to kick off. I was 26 with two lovely children and eight thousand naira in my account. Let me not sound like a broken record because I have told this story several times.

The one thing I would like to say is that, his life taught me unconditional love and his death taught me kindness. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to share his air, his thoughts, dreams, hopes, love, friendship and much more.

I have since discovered that if a marriage is not based on trust and friendship but most importantly, the love of God, then I am sorry it will never stand the test of time. I have been there and I know how things can fail right before your eyes without those elements.

So, today I celebrate a man of the people,

 I celebrate a man who stood by his family through thick and thin,

I celebrate a man who touched and saved lives,

 I celebrate a man who was a hero to all who knew him,

 I celebrate a man who was a father to all who knew him,

 I celebrate a man who loved unconditionally,

 I celebrate a man who believed in sharing and caring,

 I celebrate a man who put a smile on people’s faces,

 I celebrate a man who was so full of life,

 I celebrate a man who brought people together and created friendships even in death,

 I celebrate a man who was a bigger star in his own right than most of us,

I celebrate a man who celebrated people without holding back

and I celebrate a man who will always be celebrated.

Rest in peace OBIM, the girls will always remember you and pray for your soul to rest in God’s arms. You will always be in my heart and the love I have for you will never ever die.

It has been eight years but it feels like only yesterday. Instead of crying I choose to celebrate you.

To those of you reading this, remember to give God glory for the life well spent no matter how short. He was a very happy man who hated gloomy faces. As you remember him please wear a smile and pray to God. He will love that very much.

God bless you all, now and always.

This incident happened some months ago, so between then and now I know I have been doing so many things I consider to be very positive.
I was made ambassador for women 4 Africa, we did "THE ALTERNATIVE" which was a gospel concert, where people came to worship for free and then won some money by answering some bible questions, we had a singing contest where two winners got a hundred thousand naira each to produce their single and a free music video,  we organized a free seminar called ADIVA for young women and A REAL MAN for young men where we talked about money, men, sex, women and God, INDEX TWO STUDIOS did a free five day intensive training in Cameroon on film making and then asked the students to write a script. After that we produced a short film on cancer for them, we also partnered with their film industry to produce a feature length movie titled UNSPOKEN which is still in the post production process. We just finished a short film on Domestic violence called When Is It Enough, I have been doing different Projects with PROJECT ALERT as well. The Stella Damasus Arts foundation has trained up to 40 people for free within the last two years and all my students are doing extremely well. We also have been organizing small events for people to come and donate to the flood victims in Delta state plus so many other things we have been doing.

You might wonder why I am saying all of this which is very unlike me because I do not believe in helping people and letting the whole world know. However there is a need to do that now because of what happened recently. I got a call from the same journalist who confronted me a few months ago to warn me about some stories that were about to break, concerning me. He advised me not to respond to any of the stories in fact I should not even take the calls.

True to his word, some guy called me from one of the popular soft sell magazines and started asking me questions about my partner and I. He went on and on and said we bought a house, we got married and I am pregnant. I laughed so hard that I had a headache; he wanted me to confirm or refute the story. To his greatest shock I said " well, we bought eight houses on the same day, we got married in the Bahamas don't you remember the gift you bought for me and were you not at the reception?, we have fourteen children now, I am carrying twins as we speak, in fact I have just built an estate and I am about to give you one of the houses for free”.
He laughed and asked me to be serious because he is sensing that I am being sarcastic, I told him clearly that his level of intelligence is slightly off if after all I said he is still "sensing".  At that point I decided to give him a piece of my mind and this is what I said:
" whether I confirm or refute you will still go ahead and write your crap in full, then at the bottom of it you will say when you placed a call to the celeb she denied all the allegations, but at that time you would have succeeded in planting the seed in the minds of people, so what is the point of the call. Have you ever changed the story you wanted to write because the person denied the allegations? So why bother me at all when you need the negative stories to sell your magazines. Have you ever put me on the front cover of your magazine because of the good things I have been trying to do to give back to the society? Have you ever celebrated me for the successes I have been blessed with? Have you ever called me once to ask about my work, my kids, my new business, the shop we are opening, the studios we have set up and how I have been coping? Have you ever written anything good about me? But when it is time for negative and destructive stories you are quick to call me. Please by all means go ahead and write whatever you like, after all it's a free world. I ended the conversation by thanking him and people like him who have kept me in the news whether I work or not. By God's grace I have grown much stronger with each experience and I’m improving myself everyday, my children are growing up so wonderfully well that I cannot thank God enough. So no matter what you try to do to my image remember one thing "Who God has blessed no man can curse ".

After the phone call I was so relieved and happy because I had the opportunity to tell him how I felt and did not care what he would come up with. The next week, as I predicted, I was on the front page and he had written all the crap he could imagine. Guess what, the other journalist who had become my friend used the same photograph that was used in this one on his own front page and really celebrated me. He then called me and said I did not have to worry about all that anymore as he now saw me as his colleague and friend.

 I still insist that if the Nigerian media can be positive about the things that have been promoting the country, the whole rebranding process will be smoother. No matter what the government tries to do, without the media they cannot reach out to the people. When you go out of the country and you say that you are Nigerian, a lot of people will immediately ask you if you know Genevieve, or Omotola, Stella Damasus or Ramsey, or Aki and Pawpaw. These are the people we should refer to as the pride of Nigeria. Some years ago when you mention Nigeria, people will hold on to their bags tightly because the name Nigeria spells dishonesty and fraud. How can we get people to do business with us or make us Ambassadors when our images are being dented by the same people who are supposed to celebrate us and commend the work we are doing.
In their defense though, people do not like to read positive things about others, they do not like to see other people's progress being put out in their faces everyday, they find it very irrelevant to know how much work and how many awards Stella is receiving.  Stella is not in the habit of paying people to write good things about her so you may not get to know half of what she has been doing. Stella is not one to do things for orphans and carry a television crew to show the world who and how she is helping.
Bottom line is that nobody wants to know how good you are. But they all want to know who Stella is dating, who Stella went out to lunch with, where Stella got money from and other juicy stories. Then they will say “it is the way the industry is. Stella you must be ready to take bad publicity". I still believe that if you want to write bad stories ( that are probably not true), then you should also write the good things as well so that  there is a balance somehow as opposed to making us out to be demons.

I just want to say a big thank you to all the people who came out with gifts for the displaced in the Delta state flood disaster.

It was an amazing experience which opened our eyes to the fact that Nigerians can be very caring and compassionate.

The truth is that eighty percent of the people who showed up at the two day event were not even from delta state.

Humbled and pleasantly surprised, I realized that in the heart of the average Nigerian lies peace and love. This is evident especially when there is trust.

Something very touching happened on the 11^th of November which was the second day of the event.

A man came with his family to the venue, he came down and asked for the organizers and then asked his daughters to bring out the things they brought from the booth of the car. As they did that, he asked one of the organizers (Lamboginny) to walk to the car and meet someone who wanted to come by all means to donate the little she could. When Lambo got there he found a woman who had stroke, was paralysed and could hardly even talk. She managed to mutter a few words as she expressed how impressed she was that we put this kind of event together.

To my greatest shock I was told that she actually prayed for Lambo and our team. This woman could not talk properly and could not even walk but she forced everyone in her home to come out with her to give what they could.

I learnt a lesson from this woman and actually realized that we are not even doing enough to help.

A lot of other people especially our families and celebrity friends came out with relief materials, but judging by the amount of people who would normally come out, pay to watch a concert and fill up the Expo Hall at the Eko Hotels and Suites, I was still disappointed at the turn out.

I began to wonder why it is so easy to get people to come out and spend their money to watch a show that will only last for a few hours, but you cannot get them to come out and help to save the lives of women and children.

This time people were not asked to donate money, we only asked for food items, blankets, books, clothes, shoes, toys, mattresses etc. just so that these displaced people can survive in the camps until a solution to their problem is found

The one that hurt me the most was when a guy on twitter who I maintain is irresponsible and very silly sent a message to me publicly stating that I should stop asking people to help the displaced because it is the work of the government to help them. I had to respond publicly too so that he can realize the stupidity of what he was saying. I asked him if he was going to sit down and watch people suffer and die especially children because he feels that the government should do everything.

I asked him what he would do if this disaster had struck his own hometown wiping out his community. Would he sit back, relax and wait for his government to do everything?

Unfortunately he was not the only one with that same opinion as there were equally other very stupid people who agreed with the crap that he was saying.

I make no apologies for the words and names I am using to describe these people because I strongly believe that this is part of the reason our country is the way it is. A country where the so called future of tomorrow will sit down and wait for the same government they are condemning to do everything for them. No one is willing to come out and help to build the nation, they are not ready to play their part, they cannot even come out to make constructive suggestions. Instead they want to get rich quick, they want to sit down and expect the government to do everything so that they can come in and reap all the benefits.

When you have a country where a lot of youths do not think that some major issues should concern them, then where is the so called hope for tomorrow.

How can we hope for the youths to take over when they are not even interested in what is going on now let alone be a part of the solution.

I am using this opportunity to tell those that are following me on facebook and twitter that I will no longer entertain negative talk from anyone. If you have nothing good to say or an idea or a solution to anything, then you are better off not saying anything. Save me the stress of deleting or blocking you.

I want to communicate with positive minded people who have ideas to share and who are ready to make the world a better place. I want to communicate with hardworking people who want to show the world what they can do, I want to communicate with people who can encourage others through the good and the bad.

If you are not one of such people please do me the favour by unfollowing as quickly as you can.

To those on my social networks who have contributed in one way or the other positively even by encouragements, I say God bless you and thank you so much for being there. Much love to you all.

I would rather be a giver than a receiver, I would rather help than be helped and I would rather be a shoulder to be leaned on than look for a shoulder to lean on.

God save Nigeria.

Quote: whatever you do please remember that there is heaven and there is hell, and trust me Jesus is coming back real soon.

Hey friends,

 

 

 

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Lots of Love,
Stels.