Popular Yoruba actor, Jide Kosoko, received what may pass for the biggest humiliation of his life on Friday, June 10, 2016.
The Lagos Prince had concluded every arrangement to bury his wife at the Atan Cemetery, in Yaba, Lagos, having organized a well attended Service of Songs for her the previous day at LTV Grounds, in Agidingbi, Lagos.
But from nowhere, Henrietta’s family literally hijacked her corpse and ferried it to Abraka, Delta State where it was eventually interred.
Their reason? Jide Kosoko did not marry their daughter officially! And as such they don’t reckon with him as her husband.
A family member told YES INTERNATIONAL! Magazine that the celebrated actor and producer refused all entreaties to visit his in laws and sort out the marriage rites, both traditionally and otherwise.
In fact, meetings were said to have been held days after her demise to see how that could be quickly resolved. ‘We actually suggested he performed the rites even with Henrietta being no more, but he refused. And that was why we did what we did. Because as far as we are concerned, we don’t know him as an in law or whatever you call it…’
Survived by two children, Muyiwa and Temilade, the late Henrietta, 53, succumbed to diabetes on Monday.
She was also the third of her husband’s four wives to have died in the last few years. A calamity even the actor is not comfortable with.