Award-winning Nigerian makeup artist Hakeem Onilogbo, popularly known as Hakeem Effect, has opened up about the challenges his wife faced in trying to conceive.
In an emotional interview with Biola Bayo on the Talk to B show, he revealed that people would often send messages to his team urging his wife to get pregnant.
Hakeem shared that at some point, people mistook his wife for his mother, and some even went as far as accusing him of using her womb for spiritual purposes.
Due to the relentless bullying and pressure, the couple decided to go for surrogacy. Remarkably, just as the surrogate reached six months of pregnancy, his wife also conceived naturally.
“Tell your boss’s wife to go and conceive. A woman’s pride in marriage is her children, not following him around. It got to a stage people used to call her Akeem’s mother and a lot of people started saying I have used her womb because immediately she came into my life, everything changed.
So, we had to go for surrogacy. By the time our surrogate was six months pregnant, my wife was already pregnant”.
Hakeem also reflected on his past relationship, revealing that he was with his ex-partner for nearly 10 years, though they never officially got married. He acknowledged that while his ex was a good and even better partner, his current wife is truly the best.
“There’s a saying that behind every successful man is a woman. I was with my ex for about 10 years before meeting my wife. She was a good and even better partner, but God gave me the best,” he said.
Hakeem revealed that the late Murphy Afolabi was instrumental in launching his career in the entertainment industry and was also the one who gave him the nickname “Hakeem Effect.“
“Osumare by the late Murphy Afolabi brought me into the limelight, and he was the one who named me Hakeem Effect,” he shared.
He also recounted a disturbing encounter with an elderly gay man who made unwanted advances toward him. “We were taken to a place, and an old man placed me on his lap, started kissing me, and asked, ‘Can I take it from the back?’” he recalled.