Mr Emmanuel's wife Margaret, who is originally from Ebonyi State, gave up the ghost after delivering a set of twin girls at their home in Owo. After delivery, she took ill and was rushed to the General Hospital at Oke-Ogun in Owo but was pronounced dead on arrival at the facility.
Following the tragedy, Mr Emmanuel, a peasant farmer in his mid-50s of Igala extraction, wants to lay his wife to rest but her family is insisting that he cannot do this unless he marries her first. They are insisting that he must go through a traditional wedding ceremony with his late wife’s corpse before he can bury her.
Mr Emmanuel said: “My life is like a balloon that was punctured with a pin, which immediately deflated it of all the joy. When a woman is pregnant the prayer is to hear the babies’ cries and that of the mother’s joy but now the mother is gone, leaving the babies.”
Narrating his wife’s last moment, Mr Emmanuel said she turned up unannounced at their Ugbagbo farm in Owo, unannounced. She then went into labour and was delivered of the twin girls, attended to by traditional birth attendants but the placenta did not come out.
He then quickly got her into a vehicle and headed for the General Hospital at Oke-Ogun in Owo but she did not make it, as she gave up the ghost at the entrance of the hospital. As if the agony was not enough, his wife's family members sent a message to Mr Emmanuel that he has to obey their custom and tradition by performing certain rituals and rites.
Chief amongst these rights includes performing the mandatory marriage ceremonies with the corpse as the couple were not formally married while Margaret was alive. Without that, they told him that he is barred from coming to his wife’s village in Akenze, Ebonyi State, let alone, burying the corpse.
Comments
Post a Comment