It’s been a tradition for the fun loving Joseph Yobo and his wife, Adaeze to post Christmas family photos, writes Ferdinand Ekechukwu
Every year after their marriage, on the eve of 2010, Nigeria’s ex-international football star, Joseph Yobo and his beautiful wife Adaeze have made it a tradition to post family photos during Christmas holiday. The Yobo’s as usual took to social media to release their annual Christmas photos and card with delight to the excitement of their fans and friends as they wished them a happy Christmas and New Year celebration.The adorable couple will be nine years in marriage a couple of days from now and are blessed with three children; two boys – Joey and Jayden – and a girl – Laxine. The Everton Legend’s wife is an ex-beauty queen – the Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria 2008. The erstwhile captain of Super Eagles had arrived Nigeria during the summer of 2009 to stay awhile when he met the Anambra beauty. He would then spend the whole holiday back home after falling in love with her.
According to Adaeze, “We met at an event in Abuja and it might have been love at first sight, though I had not noticed it. I did not know that it was something that would go far. I never thought I’d be married when I did. I was not then into the boyfriend thing. I was still discovering myself. But in the course of our phone chats, it was as if we had known each other for a long time. He left Nigeria and came back and overstayed this time and we were together. About a month after that, he started talking about marriage. He said he was serious and that he really loved me.
“I was already in love with him, so I thought about it and realised I had nothing to lose. I told him if he was serious, he needed to come see my mum. Two weeks after the discussion, he came to see my mum. Joseph and I both immediately agreed on having a baby. Because we thought if I got pregnant, everyone would know that we were serious about getting married. He left for the UK and I was always going to the hospital every other time to find out if I was pregnant.
Eventually I called him to tell him the good news, and on hearing the news, he told me he was getting me the next flight to Liverpool.
“Then we started planning for the wedding…but agreed to do a small wedding because there was no time to plan a big one. We had the wedding and a little ceremony and Joe left immediately the next day for the nation’s cup. Being a wife and mother at my age (21) was a bit difficult at first, especially for my husband. But fortunately he had so much patience and I have gotten loads of advice on how to go about it all, and when I put them to practice, they work. At the rate at which we are going and by God’s grace, it’s going to be much better than how beautiful it is now.”
The union truly can be said to have seen both celebrity couple grow in beauty and strength amidst differences as there is, according to the saying, no perfect marriage. Once there was a report about the bride’s mother (Abigail Igwe) meddling in Yobo and Adaeze’s affair which was regarded as unhealthy as it caught the attention of the press and public following her incessant visit to the Turkish home of the lovebirds who had married barely three months after they met.
Then there was the case of the alleged Yobo’s mistress calling out his wife on Instagram shortly after Adaeze posted a picture and the lady dropped a comment accusing Yobo of frolicking with other women while his wife is unaware.
Another was Adaeze Yobo revealing that she once had a fight with her husband and to spite him the more, decided to get a tattoo knowing Yobo’s disgust for such art works. To her, she got a tattoo of a Brazilian cartoon character alongside the name of their first baby and when her husband saw it, it dragged their fight for extra more days.