The lingering matrimonial crisis rocking the family of the former Governor of the old Anambra State, Senator Jim Nwobodo, culminating in the disappearance of the remains of his deceased eldest son, Ifeanyi, on the day he was to be buried, assumed a new dimension yesterday as the elder statesman disowned his children behind the act.
The former governor who addressed journalists in Enugu, accused his children of stealing the corpse of their elder brother, Ifeanyi, on Friday, December 5, which prevented his burial on the said date.
Ifeanyi passed on at a private hospital in Enugu on Sunday, November 16.
“As I speak to you people now, I don’t know where the corpse of my son is, it shows the character of their mother.
“Please I want to make one appeal to the media, I have only one wife (Patricia), I divorced this woman (ex-wife) before I became governor (in 1979). Please don’t write that I have two wives; save me the embarrassment of saying matrimonial problem, the church would not have wedded me if I had another wife.
“The children don’t have my flesh and blood in them because if they do, there are
certain things they will not do. My children who have my flesh and blood (children of Patricia) lavish love on me; to steal the corpse of their brother, it’s unheard of, it’s an abomination,” he lamented.
The former governor and senator (Enugu East-1999-2003) declared never to have anything to do with the burial again, saying, “After that day (December 5), as far as I’m concerned, I have completed the burial, I will never be part of it again.”
Going down the memory lane, he explained that his late first son, Dr. Ifeanyi Nwobodo Jnr was sick for months and hid it from him, noting that it was somebody who visited him and saw that he was dying that raised an alarm and informed him (Nwobodo) upon which he made arrangement with the help of his wife to get American visa and flew him to Houston Texas.
Senator Nwobodo stated that his son though at stage four of the cancer, was already cured at the Anderson Medical Cancer Centre in Huston Texas USA, one of the best in the world, and was asked to stay longer in the USA but that he returned to Nigeria because of pressure from his (Ifeanyi’s) wife and that when he came back and developed pains on the legs, he (Nwobodo) took him to a consultant oncologist at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Enugu.
He revealed that the doctor instead of taking his son to the teaching hospital where there are facilities for emergency, rather referred his son to his private clinic where the doctor administered him with an injection that led to complications and his eventual death.
Nwobodo explained that his present abode was a piece of land he acquired and not ancestral home, saying that he had provided the land opposite his house, which he acquired at the same time as the place he built his home, and ensured that a bungalow was erected in the place within three weeks.
He said his children never showed him any sign of protest until the day of the burial, when they went to the mortuary and “stole” the corpse, when all the dignitaries that came for the burial had arrived.
Nwobodo said he was not supposed to be the one to bury his son, and was not supposed to see the corpse, and so to bury him in his compound where he wakes up every day and beholds the site of the grave would be a psychological torture on him.
Besides, he said as long as he is still alive, he reserved the discretion to decide which of his children would inherit any of his property.
According to him, when the church intervened and the siblings agreed that the remains could be interred at the church premises nearby, which he personally built and it was inaugurated by Arch Bishop of Canterbury in 1982, he accepted, only for his children to rescind.
He said the traditional ruler of the community also tried to intervene by accepting that the corpse be interred at the ancestral home of the Nwobodos, but again his children refused, adding that he heard that the children have rescheduled the burial for December 16, without informing him.
Recall that the scheduled burial of Ifeanyi failed to hold on December 5 following disagreements over where he should be buried. Nwobodo and others had waited in vain for the funeral church service billed for 11a.m. at St Mathew Anglican Church, Amechi to kick off.
As at 3p.m., the church service could not start prompting dignitaries to start leaving the venue in their numbers.