How I Was Stranded In New York, BBNaija Housemate Boma
This week’s episode of #WithChude featured actor, model and BBNaija star, Boma Martins Akpore, popularly referred to as Boma. In this episode, he tells the host and co-founder of Joy inc. Chude Jideonwo the interesting story of how his desire to japa resulted in him being stranded in the big City of New York.
Recounting his japa experience, Boma revealed that certain people had promised to help him relocate. This prompted him to drop everything to move to New York in the hopes of a better future. His hopes were quickly dashed when on getting to New York, the people who promised to help him relocate stopped communicating with him.
Narrating this experience he said, “As soon as I got to New York, JFK, the guy didn’t pick his call again”.
Seeking a way out of his predicament, Boma said he began to try his hands on different things. One thing he tried which was promising was football. His pursuit of a career in football led him across countries. He went from the United States to Belgium and finally to Poland where he played in a small club. Later on, Boma travelled back to Belgium where he got in contact with an agent who tried to sign him to a club for the Scottish premiership.
Unfortunately, the day he was to be tested by the club, he sustained a career-ending injury. Describing the incident, he said, “No one touched me o. I just kicked the floor. I was going to kick the ball and I kicked the floor.”
After this experience, he was treated to help him manage the injury and enable him to play. However, the treatment did not make the injury any better and with excruciating pain emanating from the injury every time he walked, he had to give up his dreams of playing in the big leagues.
The painfulness of having to give up his football dreams at the edge of a career-defining moment made Boma lapse into depression for about seven months. Speaking about this, he said, “That led me into serious, heavy depression. My depression was bad, I would wake up and I would sit down on the floor, and I would not move. Seven months. I’ll just sit down. I don’t want to do anything. I will just sit down.”
What helped him come out of depression was the words of his friend who reminded him that he had a family who was depending on him. “My guy was like, ‘Bro, you can’t be living like this. There are people in Nigeria that need to eat. Your mama dey there. You know say people dey depend on you. You need to pick up yourself. You need to push. You no fit dey like this. Wetin don go, don go.”
Boma eventually moved on from this experience and went on to become a Big Brother Naija Season 6 housemate, gathering his own fair share of fan, love and attention.
