This Yoruba Audio Story was produced at the studio in Ibadan by WWW.ABEOKUTA.ORG the website of Radio Abeokuta.

Adeleke Osindeko (aka "Akewijesu") is the Narrator of this Yoruba story

This story was originally featured 78 years ago in a Lagos newspaper in 1929

English subtitles have been included by Radio Abeokuta's production team for the benefit of non-Yoruba speakers

"This is the Story of Segilola the lady with delicate Eyeballs, lover of a thousand men - Part 1"

Addressed as a letter to the Editor of Akede Eko. "Dear Mr. Editor, Greetings, I will be most grateful throughout the remaining days of my life"

If you will grant that I, Segilola, the lady with delicate eyeballs, the celebrated prostitute (married to a thousand husbands) may serialize the story of my life in your newspaper

Perhaps, this will give me an opportunity to do one good deed in the last days of my life - a life that been all misery and waste

because there may be some among the young men and particularly, the ladies, who may learn from my misdeeds

and avoid regretting in their last days with bitter tears as I, Segilola, cry today for mistakes that cannot be repaired.

Alas! Things should never be so bad that a miserable person does not have a comforter

Dear Mr. Editor, I beg you to protect my identity, never reveal my real names to anyone otherwise

you will make it impossible for me to move freely in Lagos, the land of my birth

I believe that you will stand by your promise not reveal my real names to anyone on earth

I, Segilola, the lady with the delicate eyeballs comes from a distinguished family in Lagos

I was born at Imaro Street on 9 September 1882, the sixth child of my parents

All other children died in their infancy, according to what I was told, and my parents were already very old before I was born

My mother told me that my father died when I was only one year and one and a half weeks old

Since then she has been laboring alone with much hardship to bring me up as a good child who

might support her in her last days. However I regret to confess that rather than become a source of comfort for my kind mother, I became an object of affliction

Maybe this is why God now punishes me, and my conscience troubles me all day long

Oh! What a life! I have shed so many tears for my fate! What lamentation! So many sighs at this stage of my life!

Anyone who is taught, let her learn, anyone who has the benefit of parental training, let her know that she is being given an enduring legacy

Look at me now, a pitiful wretch My mother taught me, but I was incorrigible

she warned me openly and privately but I chose to be deaf to her advice

Here I am now, an orphan, shedding tears for my stubbornness, but my lamentations are belated because my good mother is no more

However let me stop crying now, I have been overwhelmed with regret for my misdeeds

oh my eyes are already full of tears as I write now. Therefore let me set aside my remorse and continue the story of my life

My complexion is extremely fair, frankly I was one of those few women on whom God lavished beauty

It was the misuse of that beauty that has brought me into this misery

My eye balls are fairly big, that was why the wives of the family, when they those chose my praise name called me "Eleyinju-ege"

which means "delicate eye balls" Segilola was the pet name which my grandmother me when I was a child

My mother told me that this was because my neck usually becomes more captivatingly whenever I wear a necklace made of segi beads

It is these two names that I have combined to form the name "Segilola Eleyinju-ege"

As I proceed further with my story, all of you who do me the honor of hearing this story will come know how I married one thousand husbands in my life

I shall stop writing now until next week

Yours sincerely, Segilola Eleyinju-ege - www.abeokuta.org