What a Man, Calista Offor Allegedly Did To His Wife and Daughter Will Break Your Heart and Make You Wise Up

Perhaps, only few women, including men, would remain in one piece after experiencing what Calista Offor aged 45, has gone through in the hands of her ex-husband, Felix Oshai aged 50.

Calista had worked so hard to build a thriving company, had good cars and did well for herself, but now living at the mercy of well-wishers because her husband (allegedly) arrived from the United States and hijacked her company.

He also sold two of her cars, took the remaining one for himself, gave her serious beating, converted her properties into his and worst still, married their sales girl, her emotional and psychological wellness can only be imagined.

According to Punch , when they visited her where she now resides in Lagos during the week, her story was one that could make anyone cry, more so that she alleges that the same man has not stopped humiliating and threatening her as each day passes by.

While she tried to hold back tears, the mother of one said her life has been traumatic and also taking care of her daughter Onyeka aged 17, who suffers from autism. Since he left with everything, Calista and her autistic daughter had been living from hand to mouth.

Calista’s torturous journey to her present predicament began when her husband was allegedly deported from the prison in the US and he moved in with her. Soon after, all she had worked for vanished before she could say, because according to her, he took over the company.

Following series of battery, his absence from home for about a year, his refusal to take care of the autistic girl and his alleged infidelity, which made her to contract venereal disease, a sexually transmitted disease, Calista filed for divorce in 2010, which an Ikeja High Court granted in 2016.

With the support of Child Dignity Foundation and others, Onyeka now enjoys scholarship at a special school for people with her condition, but getting transport fare from Ipaja, where she lives with her mum, to school is usually a herculean task and so she’s absent regularly.

A beautiful woman with confidence and good accent, Calista, in an emotive voice, explained that they met while both of them were in school but he travelled to the US while she went for the National Youth Service Corps programme.

She added that she was 25 when they got married. Revealing that she was under serious pressure to get married on time, and then he seemed to her as a good man; gentle, meek, intelligent, caring and she was intrigued by his ingenuity.

Regretting that maybe if they had courted much maybe she would have seen the violent nature of his. It was not until they got married and she joined him in the US that she found out he was involved in nefarious activities.

Calista, a graduate of Mass Communication recalled her experience with him in the United States and said it ranged from frustrating to ridiculous situationss. She said:

“In the US, we lived with his sister who later threw us out. We moved to an uncompleted building where we lived with all kinds of reptiles before we could raise money to rent an apartment.

He confessed to me he was involved in credit card fraud and that he was released from jail to pay restitution. He couldn’t pay up and they rearrested him. I needed to survive, so I got a job in a company. There, I had leg injury and I had to use crutches for some time.

I was eight-months pregnant when he was rearrested and he was in jail when I had my baby, Onyeka. It was when my daughter was two months old that he was released, with the mandate that he must pay back that money.

Onyeka became autistic when she was 2 years old. I had to sell my jewellery and native wear to raise money and survive. Given all the troubles, he suggested we should come back to Nigeria but that I should go first so he could work some more and continue paying the restitution.”

While she came back to Nigeria to start life afresh, Calista alleged that she never knew Felix went back to the same credit card fraud, which led to his arrest again before he was later deported.

But while Felix was allegedly languishing in cell in the US prior to his deportation, Calista accepted fate, took the N2m she had saved before travelling and established a company, called FELCAL International Ltd. in Mushin, Lagos.

She said FELCAL was an acronym of their names; Felix and Calista. She said the company which was into selling printing materials, got the sole distributorship for a top product in West Africa, making people from other countries to come to Nigeria to buy the product.

Providence smiled on her and the company began to flourish. When Felix returned from his sojourn, and failing to raise money to start anything, he joined his wife in the business, and they lived as a family.

But, according to her, running the company together was the beginning of the end to her happiness and that of her daughter. At a point, Felix told her to stop coming to the office. She decided to build her career and get a job in a consulting firm which she got promoted.

She revealed that after that her estranged hubby asked her to resign and when she refused, he beat her black and blue. She said she lost two of my teeth to that battery. Unknown to Calista, more troubles lay ahead.

Eventually, Calista took another job when he pushed her out of the company which she later lost and resorted to travelling abroad to buy things to sell, but that didn’t change anything. Despite the money Felix was making from the company he already hijacked, he was still stealing her money.

He also forced her to close all personal accounts and insisted that they run a joint account, which he cleaned up before he left. He not only battered her, he refused to take care of Onyeka and infected Calista with a venereal disease.

Callister confessed that the infection hurt her more than the money he stole from her, because she is still suffering from it till date. By the time she discovered the infection, Felix had moved out of the house, but not without leaving her empty.

Interestingly, when Calista took the matter to court in 2010, the presiding judge, Justice (Mrs.) L.A.M. Folami, admitted several documents tendered by Calista. This didn’t go down well with Calista, who also alleged that the judge was silent about the ownership of the company.

She said Justice Folami, in her judgment in June 2016, granted her ownership of the property, among other rulings. However, according to the judgment’s Certified True Copy, sighted by our correspondent, Felix has ownership while a quarter of the property was given to their daughter.

But on the other hand, the obligations the court imposed on Felix had not been fulfilled till date, which from all indications, had hampered the well-being of the autistic child. Calista said Felix had not done anything since the judgment was given in June 2016.

At the moment, Calista is facing another likely eviction as her rent would soon expire, with no hope of being able to raise a quarter of it. She said the company makes money till date and that it operates three accounts,only one of the statement of account was available in court, which were in millions.

In spite of the judgment, Calista and her daughter have continued to live from hand to mouth, and at the mercy of well-wishers. The girl had been out of therapy, which is why she throws tantrums and eats her own hand, among other challenges.

While on the other hand, Felix allegedly lives in affluence with the millions of naira in the company’s account, domiciled in naira, US Dollars, British Pounds and Euros, according to the bank statements sighted by our Punch Coresspondent.

But a child protection, development and advocacy organisation, Child Dignity Foundation, which intervened in the matter, followed the case and ensures that Calista does not sleep outside or go to bed hungry. The Executive Director has requested that Government intervene.

Meanwhile, the man at the centre of the issue, Felix, in an interview with our correspondent on the phone on Thursday, claimed that the case was still in court. When reminded that judgment was delivered in June 2016, he said he had appealed the case.

Beyond these, he has also, allegedly, married the company’s sales girl, Blessing Oshai, with whom he now has children and they live as a family.

Photo credit: Punch