38-year-old Glory, a bosom friend to late gospel artiste Osinachi Nwachukwu has narrated the ordeal and sad experiences the singer endured in marriage.
WITHIN NIGERIA recalls that the 42-year-old artiste died on Friday after spending days at an undisclosed hospital in Abuja.
This publication had also reported that the husband of the late Dunamis Church lead singer, Peter Nwachukwu, has been arrested over the death of his wife.
The case was transferred on Monday from the police division to the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department.
Speaking with Vanguard, Glory said Osinachi’s husband spat on her, poured water on her while sleeping.
Glory alleged that, “Osinachi’s husband sometimes poured a full bucket of cold water on her while she was deeply asleep.
“Osinachi told me that he (husband) threatened her that she would die and he would marry another wife. He called her an imbecile. He even told Osinachi’s twin sister that he was going to separate them. He called Osinachi a pig (smelly dirty woman) publicly.
“When we went for music ministration and programmes, Peter would put the children on dry fasting from morning till evening. He would wake them up by 2:00am to pray for eight straight hours while he himself would be fast sleeping. And if they dared sleep off, and he caught them, he would flog them as well as their mother.
“One of Osinachi’s sons has about 25 scars on his back from the strokes of cane which are testimonies of how he manhandled the children. Another of their sons bears 12 cane scars on his own back.
“He monitors them excessively. If not going to church or school, these children don’t leave the house.”
Why Osinachi didn’t open up
Glory admitted that some of the late singer’s friends were aware of her marriage predicament but somehow could not do much to help her situation.
She said: “Osinachi’s husband used to lock me out of their house when I went visiting. He told me to my face that he didn’t want to see me in their house
“He was fond of spitting on her head and face to show his feelings of disgust towards her, but in spite of all the humiliation, Osinachi did not cry out for help.
“One day, she told me that there were three reasons she didn’t want to leave the abusive marriage.
“First, Osinachi said she didn’t want to be the reason people would curse God. Two, she believed divorce was unacceptable to God. Three, she didn’t want whenever, she was ministering people would who gossip her situation as a woman who couldn’t keep her marriage and then undermined her service to God.”
Osinachi was simply avoiding stigmatisation.
Peter Nwachukwu’s secret marriage
While Osinachi and family may have been oblivious that her husband was previously married, because he kept the truth away from them, a close friend of the family said he knew about the mess since 2012, but didn’t mention anything about it to the late gospel music celebrity.
“Peter had said something to me about his first marriage in 2012, but I couldn’t tell if Osinachi was aware of that union,” the family friend said.
Asked why he kept the secret away from Osinachi, the source said: “I didn’t know how she would react. Peter told me that his first marriage was so terrible. That was when I came into Dunamis newly at the Area 1 church in Garki. Till date, he never said anything more to me about that union. It was only yesterday, I now recalled how he gave me the hint a long time ago.”