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By Lawrence Agbo
Veteran Nollywood actress and evangelist, Eucharia Anunobi, has revealed that her father once locked her in a room for six months for refusing to accept an office job he arranged for her.
The Nollywood star-turned-evangelist made the revelation while speaking during an appearance on The Honest Bunch Podcast, where she recounted the challenges she faced growing up, including her father’s strong opposition to her education and career ambitions because she was a girl.
According to her, the situation escalated when she rejected an office job her father arranged for her, and to force her, he locked her in her room for six months and repeatedly pushed employment forms under the door for her to complete.
“For six months, my father locked me in my room. There is the small white paper they call ‘use me’ paper — he would write an employment letter and push it under my door so I could fill the form and we could submit it,” she said.
“But I would write back that I don’t want to work in an office. My mum would be crying and they would be giving me food like a criminal for six months in my own father’s house,” she added.
The actress said that her father believed educating a female child was a waste, insisting that a girl would eventually get married and take her husband’s name without leaving any legacy for her family.
She said the disapproval began in her secondary school days, when her father openly expressed his lack of interest in sponsoring her education.
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“My father was against me going to school. It was a thing of displeasure for him. From secondary school, he made it clear that he was not interested in my education,” she said.
Anunobi recalled that her father often questioned the value of educating a girl child, arguing that women would eventually marry and leave their families.
“As a matter of fact, what is in a girl child? What legacy would it leave except that they are only going to get married. So please, cut them off from me,” she quoted him as saying.
She explained that his refusal to support her education pushed her into modelling, which later became the means through which she financed her studies.
“That was how I began my journey and it encouraged me into modelling. It was modelling that sustained, fuelled and financed my education. Yes, my father was wealthy in his own terms, but he did not want to have anything to do with the girl child,” she said.
Eucharia Anunobi also revealed that her father did not begin paying her school fees until she was admitted into the university, forcing her to struggle on her own for most of her education.
“In his mind, I was a waste. He didn’t pay my fees till university, and after I struggled to make my university education possible, he wanted to lord over me, but I refused. All those acting jobs I did then, I used to sneak out to go and do them,” she said.
