I Left My Family In America To Attend To My Career In Nigeria

Popular Nollywood actress, Shaffy Bello has come out to share how she left her husband and children to focus on her career.

She recently had her say via her social media page, and Nigerians have been reacting.

According to her, she was married with two kids and based in America with her family, however, she left them in America over 10 years ago in search of greener pastures for herself in Nigeria.

Bello added that she just felt she needed more and had to make the sacrifice to build her career.

Her words, “I came back to Nigeria to spread my wings, I felt like I was pregnant and couldn’t have a chid, like my wings were sort of closed in, like I was boxed in.”

“I needed more, my soul needed more, I was yearning for more. I didn’t know the price that will come with it but I had to make the sacrifice. I paid the price of not having a connection with my children then. My daughter was 13, my son was 11. I was an hands on mother before I left them. At a point I even quit my job to raise my kids.”

“I sacrificed a lot for them to be nurtured only to now leave them in their early teenage years with their father and then again, their dad is out there making a living and i am here in Nigeria making a living so they missed the joint parental touch but that is about that.”

“I left my husband because he allowed me. We divorced 5 years ago when I was 45 and that was a huge sacrifice, he is a good man and father to the children. The distance affected us, long distance relationship was difficult but I knew I wanted this, if I go back, it will be too much of a sacrifice, I wouldn’t be myself and at some point i will resent him so I had to focus on what I wanted. I don’t regret the decision I took.”

“I judged myself but I thank God he did it for me this way, because it is better for me. You see, I don’t care much what people say about me, but I care more about my children and close knit family.”

WOW.

Nollywood is a sobriquet that originally referred to the Nigerian film industry. The origin of the term dates back to the early 2000s, traced to an article in The New York Times. Due to the history of evolving meanings and contexts, there is no clear or agreed-upon definition for the term, which has made it a subject to several controversies.

The origin of the term “Nollywood” remains unclear; Jonathan Haynes traced the earliest usage of the word to a 2002 article by Matt Steinglass in the New York Times, where it was used to describe Nigerian cinema.

Charles Igwe noted that Norimitsu Onishi also used the name in a September 2002 article he wrote for the New York Times. The term continues to be used in the media to refer to the Nigerian film industry, with its definition later assumed to be a portmanteau of the words “Nigeria” and “Hollywood”, the American major film hub.

Film-making in Nigeria is divided largely along regional, and marginally ethnic and religious lines. Thus, there are distinct film industries – each seeking to portray the concern of the particular section and ethnicity it represents. However, there is the English-language film industry which is a melting pot for filmmaking and filmmakers from most of the regional industries.