It was November 2019, only four months before the COVID-19 pandemic that would have the entire world on lockdown. Bolanle Aseyan, a medical student at the Lagos State University College of Medicine (LASUCOM), had just completed her final exams.
Aseyan was enthusiastic about her future and the many things she would go on to do. As a student doctor, she was already involved in several businesses, thanks to her enterprising spirit.
She was drop-shipping hair and skincare products, selling lingerie door-to-door in her hostel after buying in bulk from Woro Pedro in Lagos, and Blogging and offering social media management services to firms in France and Australia.
All these earned her enough to singlehandedly buy herself a Toyota Venza model, change it to a Honda CrossTour 2010/2011 model and also self-fund her trip to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in May 2019.
She was only 23, but life was incredibly good to her. Nothing missing, nothing lost, and she was determined to make it even better.
Her steps to making it better sent her into the arms of someone who would not only rape her, but also haunt her with the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and court cases for daring to speak up.
THE DM TO ‘OUR FAVOURITE ONLINE DOCTOR’
While waiting for her final results, she would frequent X (known at the time as Twitter) to seek information, especially about her career as a young medical doctor.
That was how she found (OurFavOnlineDoc), the page of Olufunmilayo Ogunsanya, a Nigerian doctor practising in the UK.
Ogunsanya had shared a post explaining how it was possible for Nigerian doctors to migrate to the UK for practice through the Professional and Linguistic Assessments Board (PLAB) route.
But that was not all. He would also share other posts encouraging women and “saying nice things about them”.
Aseyan made the first move after sending him a private message on November 25, 2019, seeking his expertise on whether to relocate to the UK or Canada for practice. It marked the start of what would be their one-month romantic relationship.
Their conversation, starting with direct messages (DMs) on X, soon moved to WhatsApp after it became personal. Their relationship became intimate despite the distance between them after he went through her media and liked what he saw.
“He asked me out and I really did not take any exception to it as I had followed him a bit on X, and I liked most of the things I saw him share,” Aseyan told FIJ.
A few weeks into their relationship, it was December and Ogunsanya’s birthday was coming up. Ahead of his birthday, which coincides with Christmas, he asked if Aseyan would like to come celebrate with him in the UK.
Aseyan took no exception to it even though she had made plans to visit Mauritius with her friend during the same period.
“But I thought to go to the UK instead because I had never been there,” she said.
BREAKUP BEFORE VISA
Ogunsanya then directed her to meet his friend, Azeez Owolabi, who was practising dentistry at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) for the visa processing.
“When I met Owolabi, he was very welcoming, and I felt loved. He treated me like I was the wife of his friend. It was there I found out that he was also applying for the visa, and I was asked to visit him for the bio data,” Aseyan recalled.
Owolabi handled the documentation since he had experience filling out visa applications.
“He did a very good job with it. However, since Ogunsanya was the one inviting, the word ‘fiancé’ was used for me,” Aseyan explained.
After the visa applications were filled out and submitted, trouble started between Ogunsanya and Aseyan, and before the visa would be denied or rejected, they broke up.
According to Aseyan, their relationship crumbled mainly due to his tweeting about issues they were dealing with in their relationship. This was a red flag she could not ignore.
“We would have minor disagreements over a topic, and he would go and tweet it. He wouldn’t write my name, but I could tell it was about something we had just discussed,” Aseyan said.
“This was becoming frequent and screaming red flags, and they made me uncomfortable. Sometimes, he would even speak to me rudely.”
She said some of her friends who knew about their relationship would see his posts and would be able to infer that he was referencing something going on between them.
Things only became more complicated between them as their arguments got heated. Meanwhile, at the point of dating him, she assumed Ogunsanya was only five years older than her.
However, the visa application form revealed that he was 10 years older, and she started doubting if they would work as she had never dated anyone with such an age gap. But at the same time, they were starting to have real conversations about life, and she said she was going to try it out.
“Despite this, I had to completely call it off due to the constant strain. All of this came from the way he spoke, tweeted and much more. He was always tweeting, and it felt like he lived for the platform.”
By the time the birthday he made her apply for a visa for would arrive, they were no longer dating. Aseyan said she recalled only sending him a simple message that read, “Happy birthday, Funmi”, and that was it.
THE FIRST UK VISA
The visa application Aseyan filled out with Owolabi, paid for by Ogunsanya, was rejected. The UK immigration told her that she couldn’t be allowed entry due to multiple inflows into her account as a student that were unaccounted for, doubts about her financial situation, and doubts about her intentions to leave the country afterwards.
The denial letter also stated that she claimed her family gives her N2.5 million every year, but her bank statements could not prove this.
She had applied to visit the UK for only 18 days.
“You stated that you are a student with an annual allowance from your family of N2,500,000.00 (equivalent to £5,207.67 at £1 = N480.06, www.oanda.com. However, the information you provided does not demonstrate this income,” the denial letter reads in part.
“You submitted personal bank statements (account number ending 1071) showing an available balance of £9,661.43.
“I note that throughout the period shown, there are a series of credits that enter your account. The information provided does not demonstrate the source of these funds.
“On the evidence before me, I am not satisfied that these statements are a true reflection of your financial circumstances or that your circumstances are as stated.
“Given the above, I am therefore not satisfied that you have demonstrated your circumstances are as declared or are such that you intend to leave the UK at the end of your visit. This also leads me to further doubt your intentions in travelling to the UK.
“I am also not satisfied that you have sufficient funds to cover all reasonable costs in relation to your visit without accessing public funds.
“Your application for a visit visa has been refused under paragraph V4.2 (a), (c) and (e).”
THE SECOND VISA TO THE UK
Aseyan explained to FIJ that when she saw the reason for denial, she reapplied, but this time, with a letter of introduction, stating where she got most of her money from.
Her visa was approved in 2020, and she began to prepare for her trip.
Although she was no longer dating Ogunsanya, she informed him and Owolabi, who had gained entry into the UK, about her second visa approval.
Her visit excited both men; for Ogunsanya, he thought it would be a chance for them to fix their broken relationship. He told her that “maybe the reason why we’re having so many problems is because it’s long distance”.
When he said this, “I only said ‘let us see’ but told myself that if I didn’t like him, I would just carry my load and leave,” Aseyan told FIJ.
Owolabi was also excited and eager to see her. He even proposed that she and Ogunsanya could seek ways to mend their relationship when she told him they were no longer dating.
“He said he couldn’t wait to see me, but I told him I wasn’t dating his friend anymore. And he was like, ‘No, now. You guys should try and work it out.’”
Aseyan added that she particularly told Ogunsanya because she had retained the fiancé status on her second application, and she needed to let him know in case the immigration decided to contact him.
“But I also had plans to enjoy myself. I had reached out to some people, and also had money to give myself the treat I wanted.”
She made all these arrangements even though her friends and the people close to her were against meeting him. She hoped that being in the same space with him could restore their broken relationship.
LEEDS, UK – MARCH 7, 2020
Aseyan met Ogunsanya for the first time on the morning of March 7, 2020, after a 12-hour trip from Lagos.
When she arrived at Leeds Train Station, in West Yorkshire, he was waiting in a brown sweater and ready to take her to his house.
But the excitement of meeting him waned off for her almost instantly, as he wasn’t anything like what she had expected, she told FIJ.
She said she had envisioned him to be taller than her by some inches and with a robust look.
“Seeing him for the first time was nothing like I imagined. Not like I hadn’t seen his face in video calls before, but in video calls, he usually asked me to stand, like he was assessing me through pictures, and I never did that,” she told FIJ.
“From his pictures, I couldn’t really tell what his height or body frame was. And seeing him right there, he was skinny, smallish, and shorter than me, though not by much.”
She told FIJ that all these were physical turn-offs for her, as they didn’t fit into her ideal expectations of a partner. But she told herself she would be polite, open-minded and find her way out of the situation as soon as possible.
Since she would be arriving first at this place, Aseyan had asked Ogunsanya for a separate room beforehand, which he agreed to, even though there was someone else staying in his house — ‘Dr James’.
Per their arrangement, Ogunsanya would vacate his own room, the master bedroom, on the topmost floor, for the guest room on the middle floor, so she could use it.
Meanwhile, the other doctor was putting up with Ogunsanya for the period due to some personal issues he was dealing with.
These issues didn’t matter to her; she was just relieved to have ended her journey, which was stressful and was compounded by the trauma of losing her luggage during her layover in France.
James showing her to her room further made comfort seep into her bones. All she wanted to do was get a good, long sleep.
THE RAPE
Aseyan was downstairs in her room, reliving the memories of her trip, when Ogunsanya texted her on WhatsApp at 11:12 pm and asked her to come downstairs with a bottle of red wine.
Before then, he had asked her to come over at 3:08 pm and at 3:22 pm.
“Come downstairs, jor. I’m in the room on the middle floor,” a WhatsApp message from him reads.
She told FIJ that she deliberately ignored both messages, not because she suspected anything, but rather because she was tired.
At 11:10 pm, his message came again. This time, it was him asking if she was still awake, to which she responded, “About to borrow your stocking”.
“Get the red wine, too,” came the next message. Afterwards, he asked if she had seen the stockings, to which she responded in the affirmative.
Aseyan told FIJ she took the wine to Ogunsanya’s guestroom with the half-stockings she could find, but had to return upstairs after he gave her the exact description of where to find the full ones.
She explained that when she returned, he had already poured the wine, which she did not object to.
“When I got to his room, he was like, ‘What is going on?’ but I said I had a headache and was really tired. He said the wine would help me sleep better, but I told him I was fine and that maybe food would help instead,” she said.
“But he insisted that I drink. I then asked if he would drink with me, but he said no, that he had already drunk before I came.
“I asked for the stockings, and he described where to get the proper ones. I left him with the wine and the glass, then came back to the room.
“By the time I returned, he had poured the wine.”
Without distrusting him, she took the glass, drank and then blacked out.
When Aseyan woke up hours later, it was to Ogunsanya fondling her and attempting to pull down her trousers and underwear.
She told FIJ that she tried to remember what was wrong with the drink that made her lose consciousness, but couldn’t think of anything. She stated that she could not tell if she had blacked out due to being drugged or exhausted.
Aseyan explained that she wasn’t an alcoholic but would take wine occasionally. However, she recalled that the wine she had picked wasn’t strong and had only about a 5% alcohol volume.
“All I know is I woke up to him fondling me and pulling down my pants. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t shout. I just remember saying, ‘Stop, stop.’ But he said ‘shhhh’ and just kept at it, pulled down my underwear and had sex with me without a condom,” Aseyan told FIJ.
“He couldn’t even pull up my top properly because it was a struggle, so he just pulled down my lower clothing and had his way. I then passed out again.
“When I woke up, my pants, trousers, everything wasn’t on my body. I woke up very cold. I remember my legs were cold. He didn’t even have the decency to cover me. I woke up freezing.”
APOLOGIES, DENIAL AND CONTRACEPTIVES
Aseyan told FIJ on August 21 that when she woke up at daybreak, she could not tell whether he was still sleeping next to her, was in the house or had gone out. As time passed over the next five years, some of the details of the rape incident have become blurry for her.
“I remember him sleeping beside me, then I stepped out to make some long calls. By the time I returned, he was gone, or he wasn’t even there next to me when I woke up,” she said.
“Honestly, I’m not even sure if my memory of it is still accurate. However, I was sure I did not see him for us to have a conversation first.”
But one thing she did remember was the call to Gani Kale, her friend in Nigeria, who had dropped her off at the airport and who also warned her about the idea of meeting Ogunsanya in person.
“I called to tell him what happened, and he was so angry. He reminded me that he had warned me not to meet him because, whether he was a doctor or not, he was still a stranger,” she told FIJ.
Kale managed to calm her down after promising to call his cousin in the country, who might be of help.
He told her to try to play it cool while figuring out what to do when she told him Ogunsanya had left for London, where he had said he would be studying for a few weeks, even before she arrived in the UK.
But James heard her crying over the phone with him and asked what had happened.
She told FIJ that when she explained, he begged her to stay quiet, mainly because they were in the UK, living next to white neighbours who took crimes like rape seriously.
He just kept saying, “Oh, my God. I’m so sorry. Jesus Christ. How would he do that to you? I’m so sorry.”
She said she remembered telling him she didn’t take the incident lightly as well, but James kept imploring her to be calm, that he would ring Ogunsanya and speak with him.
While she waited for James to, she rang Owolabi, who had helped with the first visa application. Like James, he also pleaded with her to hush the situation.
He said Ogunsanya’s actions were probably based on his affection for her and that she shouldn’t see it as a rape or report to the police, otherwise his licence might be suspended.
“Owolabi was also saying ‘Oh, my God, I am sorry about this.ʼ That, ‘please, maybe he likes you and that’s why he did this to you. Please, don’t see it that way, you know he likes you’.
“That one was just saying all sorts of nonsense. Now that I think about it in hindsight, it was just nonsense.
“But he said, ‘Please don’t go to the police. If they withdraw his licence, the way people will look at you, they will say you ruined his life.’”
Owolabi promised to call her back after speaking with Ogunsanya.
Aseyan said she simply sat there contemplating what to do. She considered going to the police, but she was scared — a decision she now utterly regrets.
Even while in Nigeria, she had never had a reason to go to the police station, and now in another country, she doubted if it was a good option. “I was young and really didn’t know what to do.”
Kale called back and said his cousin wasn’t taking his calls, and asked if she could wait in the house until Ogunsanya returned so they could resolve it.
After what seemed like forever, Owolabi called her and told her to inform Ogunsanya that she suspected something had happened and how it made her feel.
Rather than call him, she sent a voice message expressing displeasure with the rape, stating that she did not give her consent… that he slept with her without a condom while she was unaware of his sexual health status, and that she needed a contraceptive immediately because she wasn’t sure whether he had ejaculated inside her or not.
Right there, she said he called her and was super apologetic about his action, but in the WhatsApp DM, he acted differently.
Aseyan told FIJ she regretted not clandestinely recording that phone conversation.
“He was super apologetic, like, I think he was genuinely sorry on the phone. But then, on WhatsApp, he started acting as if nothing really happened. It was confusing,” she said.
“On the phone, he was very sorry, but in chats, he wrote things like, ‘I’m sorry for what you thought’ or ‘I’m sorry for how I made you feel’—you know, those funny apologies that aren’t straightforward.
“And I told him: ‘But you came to my room. Look at your own chat. You told me to come. You told me to bring the wine. Don’t make it sound like I just showed up in your room out of the blue. I didn’t even want to come. Look at the timeline before I responded to you.‘”
She said all he tried to do was gaslight and make her doubt what he had done to her, telling her that she should have known better.
In the audio message she sent to Ogunsanya after the incident and obtained by FIJ, Aseyan said she wasn’t ready for a baby yet, especially since they were no longer dating.
“I don’t really know how to feel, but I really don’t appreciate what happened the first night I got here. I don’t appreciate it because I feel like I didn’t give my consent. I feel like I wasn’t in my right state of mind when that happened, and I just didn’t give my consent. I’m not happy about that.
“More importantly, I don’t really understand why you would feel it’s okay, given the fact that you and I are technically not seeing each other currently.Aseyan’s WhatsApp voice message to Ogunsanya after the rape incident.
“We had so many issues while I was in Lagos. We’ve not really discussed or trashed anything. You’ve not said anything about it. There was no reassurance on your part. You’ve not even had any discussion prior to what happened that night. And that was even my first night here. So you can imagine how I feel.
“That’s one. And then I know you said you didn’t come inside me. It’s not like I doubt you, but I would feel much safer if I could get a contraceptive. I didn’t bring one to the UK because I honestly did not have the intention of having sex, given our current status. But I need reassurance, which is the contraceptive.
“Anything could have happened, and an unplanned pregnancy is not something you and I need right now. Especially not me. You might not have a problem with having a child right now because you actually desire it, but that’s not what I need, especially from a situation like this. So yes, if I can get that, I would really appreciate it, because all you are giving me is word of mouth, and that’s not good enough.”
Aseyan explained to FIJ that what followed was a cancellation of his prolonged study plans in London and his return to Leeds. When Ogunsanya returned, he did so with apologies that seemed genuine. He said his life and licence were at stake; it was a mistake; he did what he did because he liked her.
“He knelt and was pleading. He was crying, and I was too. It was an emotional conversation for both of us. I told him it was okay, and we both stood up.”
However, the peace they formed didn’t last long.
COVID-19 LOCKDOWN, EMOTIONAL TORTURE
A few days later, COVID was forcing major cities across the world, including London, to go into a lockdown. The coronavirus was spreading fast, and many governments were shutting down airports to protect their borders.
Citizens trapped abroad were also calling their governments to evacuate them home. There was chaos in almost every corner of the world. But the chaos was only steps ahead of the one going on in Ogunsanya’s house in Leeds.
The first week after the incident, Aseyan told FIJ, Ogunsanya had changed and had become almost like an angel who cared about her genuinely. Or so she thought. She didn’t know it would be short-lived.
Despite his new nature, she was eager to leave the UK and was only waiting for the items she ordered from Fashion Nova to be delivered.
The lockdown crept in, trapping her in his house.
During its early days, she frantically searched for a flight that was heading to Lagos but was unlucky. “Every single day, I tried to bring a flight forward, but it was already full. That was how I became stuck.”
When it dawned on both parties that they were stuck with each other, Ogunsanya changed again; he asked her for sex.
He tried to invite her into his room, asking that she spend the night there, but she refused.
Ogunsanya pressed but saw that she was adamant, so he switched again. The new switch came with silent treatment, including clear and unclear rules that guided their tense relationship.
The new switch first affected her water heater, as it stopped working for no reason. She thought it was something with the heaters across the house, until James told her his was working.
“I told James, and he said maybe Fumi had tampered with it. When I tried to bring it up, he snapped at me and asked if I was paying for anything in the house,” she told FIJ.
“Seeing that I was very cold, I just doubled my jackets and started to sleep in the living room.”
But Ogunsanya wasn’t done with her, as even in the living room, he would watch the TV late into the night with its volume blaring. “Something he hardly watched before,” she said.
Meanwhile, the silent treatments were only progressing. The next stage was having sticky notes pinned on many vital appliances in his house. Many of them read, “Do not touch. Do not open.”
Aseyan told FIJ that they were clearly meant for her, as James could still use the appliances that had these labels freely. “Most times, when I needed something from the fridge, I had to ask James to open it for me.”
When she noticed that she was restricted from using many things, she then offered to pay for them, to at least ease the economic burdens off him, but he flatly turned it down.
“I kept wondering, was this because I wasn’t paying for groceries, or because I wasn’t giving him sex? The truth is, I asked to pay several times, but he always said he didn’t want anything from me, that he wouldn’t collect money. I didn’t know what to do.”
In the midst of all these, she was responsible for both James’s and Ogunsanya’s meals. She would buy her groceries, cook, and they would all eat from it.
She said she was happy to do this because it was her way of contributing to the house.
Even with this, Ogunsanya didn’t stop being intentionally mean. She stated that he would deliberately pour food on the floor and asked if she was blind if she failed to clean it up. “I’d just clean it up because I felt like a squatter. I was living there; there was nothing I could do,” she said.
At other times, he’d see her returning from a walk through the kitchen window or any part of the house and deliberately lock the door from behind. On days when this happened, she’d have to wait for James, with whom she shared a spare key, to return or until Ogunsanya changed his mind.
But the emotional abuse only got worse.
Aseyan told FIJ she remembered accidentally dropping a glass while washing, and the profanities Ogunsanya threw her way made her want to crawl into a cave forever.
This continued until she started to dread his presence in the house and was ready to do anything for escape or peace.
For escape, she had two options: send constant emails to the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCom) to be listed for evacuation. The other was to find somewhere else to stay until the lockdown was over.
‘SEX FOR PEACE’
For peace, it was to give in to Ogunsanya’s demands: have sex with him like he wanted.
Meanwhile, when she spoke to Owolabi about the constant emotional abuse, he told her that since she knew what her host wanted, the decision to give in or continue to be stubborn was hers to make.
On one attempt to move out of Ogunsanya’s house, Aseyan went to Manchester to check out temporary housing. She had found the place through another friend in the country.
When she got there, the owner of this housing, another Nigerian doctor, instantly became enthralled with her physical features and was eager to pin her down rather than rent out his space.
Aseyan shook violently and broke down in tears while speaking with FIJ. It was the second time in one hour. The first was when she described the incident with Ogunsanya. She said that at that moment, it felt like she had a plague that attracted men to her without her consent.
“I was crying and asking what kind of life I was living and why my suffering was this much. I felt like I had a placard on my head that invited men to sleep with me without my consent,” she cried.
“I decided right there and then that whatever I was enduring in Ogunsanya’s house was better.”
On Owolabi’s advice, Aseyan said she decided to give in. She wore lingerie under her clothes and went to his room, telling him she was tired and could no longer endure the conditions in the house. She said she was ready to let him do what he wanted.
But then her phone light suddenly came on, and he became suspicious that she was recording him. He grew angry, ordered her out of his room, and she quickly left. Aseyan told FIJ she was shocked but also relieved, because the phone light was purely coincidental. Meanwhile, she had not wanted to do anything in the first place.
After that incident, she said things only got worse, as he turned off all the heaters in the house, leaving her and James, who was sick at the time, in the cold. She also noticed changes in her room, including irregularities with her hot water supply. At night, she would wake up to find him standing close to her bed, watching her silently, and her heart would race faster.
All of these only made her more traumatised.
Eventually, she packed her belongings and ordered an Uber with no idea where she was going. She said she was ready to sleep on the streets if it came to that. When he saw her bags packed, he first told her to leave, but later pleaded with her not to go, apologising. But he did not stop switching between aggression and sympathy.
On one occasion, after begging and blaming his behaviour on pressure from work, he shut the door, pulled her things inside and began kissing her. Aseyan told FIJ that she eventually gave in, not because she wanted to, but because she was desperate for peace, just as Owolabi had advised her.
This was the only consensual sex they had.
According to her, she hated it, but it temporarily brought calm into the house. The insults stopped, the heater and her shower started working again, and she could cook without fear. “Life became easier, but I was disgusted with myself,” she said.
She explained that the calm didn’t last long. Soon, the tension resumed, and by then she was worn out and depressed. In desperation, she sent more than 20 evacuation emails to NiDCom, attaching her passport ID and pleading to be listed.
“I was broke and very desperate to leave,” she told FIJ.
Things became worse when James moved out of the house, leaving her with Ogunsanya. This was in June 2020.
June was already a difficult month for her, as it marked the anniversary of her father’s death. She said her grief made the situation heavier to bear.
One evening, while she was eating and watching TV, Ogunsanya walked in and suddenly snatched the remote from her hand, spilling her food. When she protested, he snapped, asking if it was her father’s house. “That day, I fought back because I was just too angry,” she said.
Another time, he threw a fork at her in anger, and she threatened to record him if he continued. The moment she mentioned recording, he suddenly became quiet and subdued.
RESCUED BY UK POLICE
That night was the beginning of all the legal battles she would fight with him for the next five years.
It started when she shared all she had to endure with her ex’s sister. The woman was shocked and asked why she had not called the police from the very beginning. Aseyan explained that she was afraid, worried it might escalate into a bigger issue since she was new in the UK. But her ex’s sister insisted and said, “What if he kills you? Call the police.”
The following day, June 29, she took the advice and rang the police, who arrived at the house and helped pack her belongings to safety. She was taken first to the West Yorkshire police station and then relocated to a secure hotel that housed victims of domestic violence.
There, she was given food and shelter. But as soon as she was alone in that room, everything came crashing back. She broke down in tears and turned to Twitter, publicly revealing that she had been sexually and emotionally abused by a UK-based doctor.
Aseyan was evacuated from the UK two weeks after making this post on Twitter. Arriving in Nigeria, she thought she was coming home to peace, but what she didn’t know was that worse humiliation and abuse backed by the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) were waiting for her.
Source-FIJ
