By Sandra Ijeoma Okoye
There is no denying the fact that when Pastor Peter Nwachukwu began to brutally beat his wife, now late Evangelist Osinachi Nwachukwu, he never had a thought over the meaningfulness of the words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow which says, “When a great man dies, for years the light he leaves behind him, lies on the paths of men.” In a similar vein, he knew not that there is a Hebrew saying that goes thus: “Say not in grief ‘he is no more’ but in thankfulness that he was.” All along while Pastor Peter perpetrated the obnoxious act of wife beating on his late wife, and which he made a routine, going by evidences provided by neighbors, it never occurred to him that he would on a particular day make his once beloved wife, so to say, more famous in death than in living.
That the way and manner he brutalized his wife led to her death is no more debatable. This is as ample evidences were provided by the late singer’s colleagues with specific reference in this context to Frank Edward and Peter’s bereaved children during the condolence visit of the minister of women affair, Paullen Tallen. As naïve as Pastor Peter was, he forgot that when a golden fish such as Osinachi is killed that the memory which her relatives and fans have for her will forever remain. And as much as that memory remains that she remains alive.
Still in the same nexus, as long as those who love her live, she too will live, for she is still a part of their loved ones, as they remember her. The reason for the foregoing cannot be easily pooh-poohed as it is only love that gives her relatives and fans the taste of eternity. Therefore, the only truly dead are those who have been forgotten.
As event continues to unfold over the incident, it is crystal clear that Pastor Peter never saw the devil that reincarnated in him, even as he was so naïve to have known that there are many famous people who continued to live, even after their deaths years ago, through their works during their respective earthly journey. Whether they sought recognition or not, none of them could have known just how famous they would become posthumously. Against the foregoing backdrop, it is therefore not surprising that since Osinachi died penultimate Friday that not few social media users are inundated with postings that surround the ecclesiastical works she carried out whilst alive, or what those that were close to her said about her, particularly over the animalistic behavior the husband exhibited towards her.
Analyzed from the foregoing viewpoints, it is not an exaggeration to say that an African proverb that says “The dead whose praises are being sang by each passing day, and his name being mentioned more often in death than in life still lives” is unarguably finding expression in Osinachi’s death. Viewed from this perspective, it will not be erroneous to paradoxically opine in this context that Osinachi is alive, and not dead. But to Pastor Peter, she is dead as he might erroneously be seeing the dead as those that close their eyes to death and buried in an excavated six feet depth. In fact, going by the way issues that surround Osinachi’s death have been trending on social media platforms, it would not be a surprise to many of her fans that she would be named as one of the top Google Searches in Nigeria in 2022 when the time comes for Google to make known its analytics in this regard.
On the other hand, there is no mistaking the fact that her death has automatically intensified the fight against domestic violence, particularly as it affects wives more than husbands. Are you asking me how? Permit me to give you a background to the foregoing view.
On March 22, 1955, Claudette Colvin was riding a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, dutifully sitting in the “colored” section that separated Black passengers from their white counterparts. But the bus was crowded, and the driver told 15-year-old Colvin to yield her seat to a white woman. The teenager, who had recently learned about the 14th Amendment in school, refused.
Nine months after Colvin refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger, Rosa Parks did the same on a crowded bus in Montgomery. Parks’ act of resistance became a landmark moment in the civil rights movement, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which represented the first large-scale protest against segregation. Without denying the fact, her refusal to give up her seat, and other issues that trailed the event, no doubt, acted as fuel to the struggle for equal rights between the Blacks and the whites in America till today.
Consequently, not few right activists will testify to the fact that the Blacks in America, having being fueled by resistances in the past, no more give the whites the permission to despise them. For instance, the “Black Live Matters” slogan was widely used after the death of Trayvon Martin in Florida, in 2012. The unarmed black 17-year-old was shot by neighborhood watch volunteer, George Zimmerman. Other racial cases that follow cut across the support that grew following other police killings, including Eric Garner, who died in a chokehold, and Michael Brown, who was killed by an officer who said he acted in self-defense. Just in recent history, in the summer of 2020 George Floyd, an unarmed black man, was murdered by a police officer who knelt on his neck.
Without doubt, the foregoing narratives give credence to the fact that Osinachi’s death will unarguably heighten the fight against domestic violence. Like in other similar cases that border on human rights, it has opened the door for intensified activism against domestic violence.
To this end, it is expedient to conclude that life is not about living for donkey years. Rather it is by making an impact on humanity. To me as long as the impact Osinachi made in her fulfilling earthly journey, and which no doubt has remained a legacy, particularly in the fight against domestic violence, she is still alive.
Sandra Ijeoma Okoye writes from Lagos
