…says she has wiped off his future
- Wife, her relations shun children’s burial
Father of the three siblings, who suffocated to death in a fire outbreak while asleep in a room in their maternal grandparents’ home in Ohiya, near Umuahia, the Abia State capital, last December, Mr. Ezenwa Emenaha, has blamed his estranged wife for the disaster.
He alleged that with the death of his three children, his estranged wife had ruined his life, adding that since the incident occurred, he had thought he was having a nightmare from which he would soon be woken up.
When we entered the room, we noticed that the entire room was filled with smoke as the three children were lying motionless on the floor! Even the walls had been darkened by the smoke
The distraught father spoke to our correspondent shortly after the ‘mass’ burial of the deceased children in his family house in Umumba Autonomous Community, Nsirimo, Umuahia South Local Government Area of Abia State, last week.
The deceased children, Destiny, 7; Desmond, 5; and Precious, 3, died less than 24 hours after they arrived in their maternal grandparents’ home located in the same area in company with their mother for the Christmas holidays on December, 17.
According to him, his wife, with whom he had been separated for about seven months, that fateful night, after the children had slept off, lit a candle in the room, locked the door from outside and went away.
“The loss is unimaginable and irreparable. I am yet to come to terms with the reality that those children of my youth are gone forever. My future has been wiped away,” the 35-year-old man said.
He further said that his children’s visit to their maternal grandparents’ home followed moves by his father, Chief John Emenaha, a retired school principal, to reconcile him and his wife after they fell apart over her alleged mismanagement of their joint business venture.
Emenaha explained that his father had completed all the traditional requirements for settling the marital dispute with his wife’s relations, when she suddenly decided to pay a visit to his parents in Ubakala on December 17, 2017.
He said the news of his estranged wife’s visit and the decision to allow the three children to go back with her to her own parents’ home was communicated to him by his father at about 4am the following day.
Emenaha, who is an electrical equipment contractor, added that he and other members of his family rushed to his wife’s parents’ home, which is about four kilometers away. But they were shocked and for minutes they remained transfixed by the scene that confronted them! The three children were lying stone dead!
“When we entered the room, we noticed that the entire room was filled with smoke as the three children were lying motionless on the floor! Even the walls had been darkened by the smoke,” he said.
Expressing worry that his in-laws said they were not aware of the incident until neighbours raised the alarm, he added that when his wife was questioned about her whereabouts when the fire outbreak occurred, she claimed to have dozed off where she had gone to charge her phone.
Emenaha, however, maintained that during her visit to his own parents, his estranged wife convinced them to allow the three children to go back with her to her parents’ home so that they could spend the yuletide with her and then bring them back afterwards.
“When my father contacted me on the phone on the matter, I obliged him, not just because he is my father but also because since I parted way with their mother, they had been staying with him and my mother,” he said.
When asked about his future plans, he said his differences with his wife had become irreconcilable, saying he had even developed a phobia for women and might never remarry.
“It was love at first sight between us. I neither allowed my parents nor did I conduct a background inquiries into her life or disposition before proposing marriage to her, and look at how it has ended,” he lamented.
The distraught father, who advised young men wishing to make marriage proposal to seek divine intervention first “to void a similar experience,” added that he had learnt to leave the incident to God.
Also, Emenaha’s father, who maintained that the children lacked nothing while they were under his care, added that his wife, who is also a retired civil servant had yet to recover from the shock she suffered following the incident.
Speaking during the burial of the deceased children, a cleric, Venerable Don Kalu, of the Trinity Anglican Church, Ubakala, who quoted several verses from the Holy Bible, appealed to the bereaved family and the community to leave vengeance to God.
But Emenaha’s estranged wife, Uchechi, who, before the children’s burial was in police custody, and her relations, were neither at the mortuary for the collection of the children’s corpses nor attended the burial ceremony.
Efforts by our correspondent to locate the mother of the deceased children in her community as at press time, proved abortive.
