Emeka Offor, the controversial Nigerian government contractor from Anambra State, has secretly taken another wife. On Saturday, October 12, he performed the traditional rite for the marriage of a 24-year old girl as the fourth wife.
The ceremony took place at the residence of the father of the bride, Alexander Okey Ufondu, at Umuezeopi in Oraifite, Ekwusigo Local Government Area of Anambra State. The bride named Adaora, who was rusticated in 2009 from the Law Faculty of the University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus, on grounds of poor academic performance and fraud, has for the past two years been living with Mr Offor in the highbrow district of Maitama in Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory of Abuja. Therefore, the traditional wedding ceremony of October 12 was a mere formality.
The wedding has already been generating ripples in the religious communities of Oraifite, the hometown of both Mr Offor and his new father in law, Mr Ufondu, an Onitsha-based trader.
“As a knight of the Anglican Church,” said Lazurus Nwakaibeya, a former catechist in the town who is leading a group of church members to write a strongly worded petition to the church authorities in Nigeria, “Offor cannot possibly be allowed to be a polygamist and still be a knight”. But Offor has been a polygamist since 2003 without the senior local clerics raising eyebrows for fear of Mr Offor using the police against them, as he has been wont to do to those who disagree with him in the community in over 10 years.
“Besides,” observed Jonathan Mgbenwelu, a prominent member of St Luke’s Anglican Church at Ibolo Oraifite, “Offor is one of the major donors to the church, so the ecclesiastical leaders have all along turned a blind eye to his numerous infractions, including his refusal to attend church services on Sundays unless there is a major ceremony”. He was one of the sponsors of a retreat for Anglican knights in Nnewi Diocese held a week to his wedding at the All Saints Church at Irefi, which is a few poles away from his residence.
The wedding is also the subject of serious controversy among Catholics in the town. Both Offor’s new wife and her parents belong to the Catholic Church which is diametrically opposed to polygamy. Mr Offodum, better known as Casca, is reported to be preparing an elaborate defence anytime he is summoned by the Catholic Church hierarchy to explain why he should allow the daughter to be someone’s third wife. The kernel of his argument, it is gathered from his family, will be that since Offor has never wedded in the Catholic Church none of his previous marriages will be regarded as valid in the eyes of the church,making eligible to marry another person as long as he is willing to wed in the Catholic Church.
Offor became a polygamist the first time a decade ago when his secret relationship with Mrs Joy Obioha, a business woman based in Owerri, Imo State, and mother of four girls, wrecked her marriage to Chris Obioha, the proprietor of Safari Garden hotel in Government Reserved Area (GRA) of Enugu, and younger brother of Ralph Obioha, a chieftain of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), who hails from Arondizugu in Ideato Local Government Area of Imo State. Joy hails from the Ubahu lineage in Orodo, Mbaitoli Local Government Area of Imo State. Her father, Enoch Chukwureh, is the proprietor of Good Way Stores, a major beer distributor based in Uwani, Enugu.
Offor’s marriage to Joy put him on a collision course with his first wife, Nkiru (nee Emoke), an indigene of Otulu in Oru West Local Government Area of Imo State, with whom he practically grew up “and with whom he suffered in those very difficult years and with whom he carried out several dangerous fetish practices,” according to a source close to the businessman who pleaded that his name be hidden from the media. “In fact, the second marriage so traumatized Nkiru and his children that they have yet to recover from it. Chuka, the first son who is 28 years old, is today wandering in the streets of London aimlessly, as his father could not place him in a deserving post when he returned to Nigeria a few years ago”.
Very little is known about Offor’s third marriage because it was very brief, confessed a member of the Offor family who asked not to have his name published for fear of attack by the businessman who has a reputation of ruthlessness in his hometown. “What is more”, he continued, “the third wife was kept in London throughout the period they were married, away from the attention and eyes of our family members”.
Fully conscious of the acute controversy which the new marriage would generate, two Offor younger brothers were assigned to ensure that that there were no unauthorized photographs of the wedding. The two brothers are Nnamdi and Emeka (the latter is now also called Menkus because his elder businessman brother adopted his own name in the late 1980s and early 1990s while hiding from the long arms of the law following a series of serious fraudulent activities). Nnamdi furiously seized and destroyed the phone of his cousin who tried to use its inbuilt camera to capture the wedding.
Despite the secret manner of the wedding, Offor engaged in ostentatious display of wealth and generosity throughout the ceremony. Relentlessly pasting wads of currency notes on the faces of the bride and her mother as well as other dancers, Offor twice put N100,000 into the cup with which the girl presented him palm wine as a public show of acceptance of the marriage proposal. He donated N100,000 to an elderly man who officially prayed for the success of the marriage. He also gave N500,000 to the girl’s kinsmen, N200,000 to married daughters from her kindred, N100,000 to spinsters, N200,000 to women married into the kindred and N500,000 to each of the bride’s five siblings. On top of it all, he formally presented a brand new Ranger Rover vehicle to his new wife.
While Offor’s latest wife is 24 years, his eldest child, a lady named Ndidi, is 30.
