Controversial Nigerian sex therapist, Hauwa Mohammed, aka, Jaruma, in a riveting narration on NDLEA’s weekly interactive X Space, has revealed how the late convict, Dr. Anu Adepoju, and one other unnamed friend introduced her to drugs. BRIDGET BENSON shares the story
Before the bubble burst, Jaruma had flaunted herself as Nigeria’s most trusted, most successful, and highest-paid sex therapist and her clientele included the Who is Who is Nigerians social space.
In the height of her popularity, Jaruma alleged that she shared N1 million for physical consultation and N250,000 for phone conversation.
Suddenly, Jaruma went out of circulation and there were rumours about her failed marriage and issues with drug addiction. It turned out that the celebrated sex therapist had been in rehab for drug addiction.
Gombe indigene Jaruma shared her experience during NDLEA’s weekly interactive forum on X on Friday. The NDLEA’s X Space meeting was titled, Drug dependence: Addressing the fear of stigmatisation in recovery and overcoming the demon of drugs and stigma: A survivor’s story, where Jaruma narrated how a famous Lagos plastic surgeon and her friend allegedly led her to drug addiction.
She revealed that her unnamed friend and the late founder of MedContour Services Limited, Dr. Anu Adepoju, introduced her to the world of hard drugs.
Dr. Anu Adepoju was convicted and sentenced to jail for the death of her patient Nneka Onwuzuligbo in May. Dr. Adepoju, however, died before she could commence her jail term.
Her mother’s only child
Jaruma narrates, “I once made a video on YouTube discussing something. It was just a plan; I didn’t know the video would go viral and turn me into the Jaruma everyone knows. I was trying to get a job and earn a regular income. Being in the spotlight, I made some mistakes. I never got involved in drugs during my secondary school and university days because I was my mother’s only child. One day, a friend who I knew was into drugs (marijuana) invited me to hang out. We were chilling together, and she offered me the marijuana, but I refused, saying I was okay.
“She then asked me how I relax since I don’t drink or smoke, mentioning that every celebrity has a way to relieve stress. I told her I can’t do drugs or drink because I’m Muslim.
“A few days later, I saw them with a balloon, and I wondered what on earth they were doing with it. I had no idea what it was. She said, ‘Let me show you.’ If I had known what the balloon (hard drug) was, I would have refused it, just like I refused the marijuana earlier because I know what weed (cannabis) is, what codeine is, and all that stuff, so when offered, I can say no.”
Out of curiosity and probably ignorance, she inhaled the content of the balloon and her life spiraled out of control.
Drug reactions
Jaruma disclosed that her brain shut down after she inhaled the contents of a balloon given to her by a friend and that she began to drool excessively after her brain function ceased.
“I was on the floor, and then she (my friend who gave me the hard drug) said that’s the initial effect, but that after I might have done it one, two, three, four times, I’ll get used to it, and it will become normal, and I won’t be drooling anymore.
“This was something I didn’t know. She gave me the balloon, put it in my mouth—I don’t know how they do it—there’s a way they do it so that the gas fills up the balloon, and then she put it in my mouth and said, ‘Just inhale it,’ and I did.
“So, after I regained consciousness, I left because I was so upset—I was so mad because I don’t do drugs. So, I left and never spoke to her again. This is just the beginning with this thing (drugs); being in the spotlight comes with people influencing you, either positively or negatively, because if I weren’t Jaruma or popular, she wouldn’t be with me. I never spoke to her again. I was mad, and I was determined not to be initiated into any drug cycle.”
Enter Dr. Anu
Talking about Dr. Anu Adepoju, Jaruma said, “I don’t know her. She messaged me on Instagram and told me about how she performed plastic surgery on a lady, and she died. She said Nigerians were trolling her on social media and in real life.
When I returned to Nigeria after years of being away (in 2018) to Dubai, she came to visit me, and when we were talking, she said, ‘Babe, let me give you one injection. If I do that injection, you’re going to sleep like you’ve never slept before. You’re going to forget all your problems.’
“So, I sat down, she grabbed my arm, and then she did the injection through my vein. The moment it touched my blood, I felt something from the back of my neck down to my shoulders. My body felt something it had never felt before.
“As she was administering the injection, I was collapsing until I was completely knocked out for about two weeks. When I woke up, my hand and veins were swollen. After a few weeks, I called her and asked if I could get more of the drug.
“One pack was N60,000, and I bought N820,000 worth. She would send the injections to me and sometimes come to administer them on me herself. I also hired nurses who would inject me every night to help me sleep, but eventually, one dose stopped working for me. So, I had to start taking two, then three, up to five doses, and that was when my body started convulsing, like I had epilepsy, and foam began coming out of my mouth.”
Jaruma, a mother-of-one, claimed she became a drug addict after her encounter with the Anu, and that she couldn’t manage her body’s reaction to the substance she was injected with.
The graduate of International Relations and Human Therapy from Istanbul Kultur University, Turkiye, said she subsequently sued Dr. Adepoju.
Meanwhile, as part of the reactions to the substance Anu injected on her, she started vomiting, suffered bouts of diarrhoea and other kinds of illness when she tried to stop using drugs.
Suicide
The untoward illnesses forced her to continue using the injections Dr Anu introduced her to, and she felt depressed and suicidal.
“I just wanted to die, and I purposely injected myself with 10 ampoules because I was tired of life, school, work, and everything. There’s nothing worth living for. When my workers found me, I wasn’t breathing. I administered the injection myself in a significant vein on my wrist. I was becoming unconscious, and the needle started falling out. When the needle fell out, blood from the large vein began gushing out.
“It was a horrific sight to see; it was terrible. The next thing I knew, I saw myself surrounded by big machines and doctors trying to bring me back to life. It had gotten to the point where I committed suicide. I’m not going to call it a suicide attempt—this was me committing suicide. It’s not even an attempt because I died. My heart wasn’t beating, and I wasn’t breathing.”
As the X space was rounding up, Jaruma was asked if she got justice (in the court proceedings she instituted against Dr. Anu), responding, she said: “We wrote a petition against her (Dr. Anu) because I was angry, but unfortunately, when she died, I just forgave her. I forgave her because she’s dead; she died last week.”
