Vivian Onyebukwa And David Onwuchekwa
Will the tears forever flow? That is the question you find yourself asking over and over again as you meet and talk with friends and relations of the late Mrs Elizabeth Obianuju Ndubuisi-Chukwu, 53, the Nigerian woman and Deputy Director General of Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria (CIIN), reportedly strangled to death (according to autopsy report) in South Africa while she was attending an international conference.
According to a family source, on Wednesday before her death on Thursday, she went to visit her niece studying in South Africa. The school is located about fifty kilometres to the Emperor’s Palace Hotel hotel where she was staying, and she reportedly spent about two and half hours with her.
Since the news of her sudden death was broken, her native homeland, Umuonwusobara, village, Alatiampoma community in Ihiala Local Government Area of Anambra State, has not been the same. As preparations for her burial on July 25, 2019, get underway, sympathizers and media people have continued to troop in to talk to the Ndubuisis over the death of their daughter. According to a family source, her body has been brought to Nigeria and kept in a mortuary at Asaba, Delta State where it would remain until the day of burial in her hometown.
As welcoming as her people are to visitors and their condolences, you could not help but detect some pains in their looks and voices. Together they show that they are in deep mourning for their departed daughter. She comes from a very large family in the heart of the town, filled with magnificent buildings.
Family, relations and friends remember moments with her
To get the deceased’s family house at the village is easy because of its popularity. It is located at the eastward end of Ihiala community if you are approaching the place from Onitsha axis through the Total Filling Station. One common sight that a first-time visitor looking for the way to late Obianuju’s place is bound to find phenomenal is that of okada riders and other locals ever willing to show you the way while lamenting the big loss Ihiala people had suffered as a result of the sudden death of the top class insurer.
Chinedu Ndubuisi, her elder brother who informed Saturday Sun that his sister, Uju (fondly called by all the shortened form of her full name Obianuju) is regarded by her siblings as “Ada eji eje mba”, “Ada furu nwanneya n’anya”, meaning “a worthy daughter” and “one who loves and cares for her siblings a lot.”
He remembers her as being “full of fun. She is up there but you won’t know. She has a very humane character.” Talking about her death, he said: “It is a very big loss. It is extremely unfortunate. I can’t still believe that she is dead. The last text message that I sent to her at 9.27pm on the Wednesday before she died, she posted back a reply. Uju is a very high personality but she does not exhibit it. She is humble, polished and urbane. She is one of those detribalised Nigerian. Uju has friends across ethnic groups. One question I keep asking is: who killed Uju, and what is the person trying to gain?”
One of her relations, Mr. Peter Ndubuisi who spoke to our correspondent at his own separate family house said both of them attended the same primary school, that is St Stephen’s Anglican school, Nkwo Ogbe, as it was then called in the 1970s. But he completed his elementary six, according to him, before Uju who was his junior in class did.
“But one remarkable thing about her is that she was very brilliant and obedient,” he admitted. “Even though her mother was teaching at the school at that time, she did not allow that to get into her head to make her less obedient or less hardworking. She was very intelligent.” Another product of the primary school, Pastor Livinus Onyeakusi who joined the discussion corroborated Mr. Ndubuisi’s observation.
Ndubuisi told Saturday Sun that the late Uju’s father, Dr B.E.C. Ndubuisi, was a one-time Commissioner for Education in the Old Anambra State although Chinedu had earlier noted that he was State Chairman of Anambra State Education Board. Coming from such a privileged family, it was no surprise to see Uju traveling abroud for further studies after attending some schools in Nigeria. He said the deceased did a lot to empower her people while alive. He was a personal beneficiary of magnanimity, he confessed. “She used to give my wife money and always liked her to be around her each time she visited home.”
He explained that Obianuju never failed to return home during events like wedding, burial and other things that involved her people to show her presence and make her contributions. This is why she was fondly called “Ebilieri Ihiala,” a name which means, in their local parlance, “a beloved daughter of the community.”
It was gathered that late Obianuju did promise the villagers that their level in life would change for better as soon as she gets promoted to the position of Director General of her organization which he said, she was expecting in August, 2019. Ndubuisi expressed regrets that the promise never came to fulfilment because of her sudden death. He said they were told that Uju was strangled to deatth.He however insisted that justice must be done. Another member of the family, Godson said news of Uju’s death came as a surprise to all of them because they never heard she was sick. “It is a great loss to all of us. We are grieving,” he said.
The Headmistress of the primary school where was once a pupil, Mrs Florence Areh and her assistant, Mrs Florence Esiaka said they were in deep shock on learning that she was one of the products of the school. They said that they only knew the wife of former Governor of Anambra State, Mrs Mbadinuju, to be an old pupil of the school; they never knew that another prominent personality in the person of late Uju attended the primary school
The duo who claimed to have heard the news of the incident on radio and read it in newspapers said they initially thought that the victim was from somewhere else until they were told that she attended the school a long time ago in the 70s. They called on government and other relevant authorities to properly investigate details of what transpired for justice to be done.
“We remain in deep shock and pains to learn that the late Deputy Director General of Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria was one of us,” they said. “It is very unfortunate. May her soul rest in peace.”
On what they could do to immortalize her, they said a House could be created in her name if government or her family members could see to that “because we do not have the authority to do so. But that’s what we think can be done.”
From Ihiala royal family, the immediate elder brother to His Royal Highness, Ichie Thomas Obidiegwu, clan head and Oluaoha XVII of Ihiala, Clement Obidiegwu, said what happened in South Africa was painful. “Our people living in South Africa should be careful,” he said. “It is painful that such an illustrious daughter was lost like that. It is painful. Nobody is happy about it.”
He said he met late Obianuju’s father in Enugu when they were civil servants. Outside late Obianuju’s relations and Ihiala people at home, some other friends and schoolmates have been expressing their painful feelings, at the news of death, online.
For instance, Ezinne Ekekwe, on July 15, 2019 wrote in her Facebook’s posting that her death “is indeed unbelievable. How do I begin to express how I feel about this situation – Onwuamaegbu (‘death has not treated us well’). Who will call me Baby Girl? Who will buy me weave-on? Who will praise me to high heaven? Who will say to me, Ezy?”
Chinwe Ezeani on June 17, 2019 posted: “Uju, the news of your sudden death simply took the bottom from my world. I was first in denial, but as the hours sped past and I didn’t hear anything to counter this awful news, the sad reality of your demise crept in. We were schoolmates at Queen’s School, Enugu and came to UNN same year. We were in the same hostel and it was great again to reconnect with you in our Queen’s School Forum…”
Vivian Mbonu on July 7, 2019 posted: “Dear Uju, may your beautiful soul rest in peace. You were an intelligent and focused young lady. The cold hands of death cut you off in your prime time. Only God knows what happened to you. May He fight this battle.”
A schoolmate of Uju, Chioma Ndu, described her as a good heart that has stopped breathing, a good soul that ascended to heaven. She said she used to call her “Ujii” at Queen’s School, Enugu. “I’m forever grateful for the opportunity to know you, my sister,” she said. “You were thoughtful, engaged and shared your wisdom liberally. I was deeply saddened to hear of your passing away.”
Dr Chi Chi Aniagolu, at present, the Country Director of WaterAid, a non-profit organisation, with headquarters in London and dedicated to improving water and sanitation for marginalised people across the world and who had been friends with the late Uju for about 30 years is yet to come to terms with her death.
“I am completely devastated,” she said. “When I heard she died of natural causes I thought it was stress and work, but when her brother sent me a text that she died of unnatural causes, I couldn’t understand what he meant. I could not and cannot stop imagining her last moment. You can imagine when somebody is being strangled. Her eyes and tongue would be coming out until the person dies. And for what, I ask? Uju that I know would have given them what they wanted.”
On how she felt when she learnt of her bosom friend’s death, she said: “When I heard the news, the first thing in my mind was: it can’t be true. Now if you turn on the television Uju has become news. I can’t imagine that she is gone. It is still like a dream”.
Given insight into the kind of relationship they had while she alive, she said it went beyond friendship. “She was not just my friend but my sister,” she asserted. “She was one of the nicest human beings. She was a nice person, the kind of person you want to have. She would make you laugh. She is the kind of person that makes you realize it’s good to take things easy”.
According to Chi chi, they met during their University days at the University of Nigeria Nsukka, and since then, they have remained friends. Recalling her last moment with Uju, she said it happened, “when I went to see my parents in Enugu during the last Christmas. She came to Enugu and we were together. We spent the New Year together with my parents and I was like we need to do more of this. We have always wanted go on holidays together. We were planning to have a cruise. We just needed some moments to stay together once more. A part of me is gone”.
Given her troubled state of mind, you asked whether she would she able to attend her burial. “Yes, I will definitely go, but I will stay faraway. If I see her at close quarters the image would never be erased from my mind. Each time her image would come to my mind.”
Her last moments and calls for justice
Until she met her untimely death on June 13, 2019, Uju was the Deputy Director-General of Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria (CIIN). She was in South Africa for to attend the conference of the African Insurance Organisation (AIO). On the night before her body was found, she was lodged at the Emperor’s Palace Hotel and Convention Centre, where she attended the closing dinner of the AIO Conference. Her colleagues who were with her said she looked very healthy and was so full of life.
The Emperor’s Palace Hotel where she stayed and died is less than five kilometres drive from Oliver Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, South Africa, which markets itself as a secure, safe destination for rest, relaxation, and major events.
When her body was found, the initial belief was that she had suffered sudden death overnight. However, on June 20, following an autopsy, South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs issued a death certificate saying she had died of unnatural cause. The death certificate was the first indication that she may indeed have been killed. This was confirmed in a separate document issued by South Africa’s Department of Health on June 27, where they confirmed that the autopsy revealed she was strangled.
Although authorities of Emperor’s Palace Hotel were initially accused of unwilling or unable to provide access to CCTV images and other evidence that may help in unraveling the circumstances surrounding her death, but following calls by well-meaning Nigerians that include the Governor of Anambra State, Chief Willie Obiano, the Nigerian Senate, National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), a group of lawyers under the aegis of Anambra State Indigenous Lawyers Forum and Mrs Abike Dabiri, Chairman, Nigeria Diaspora Commission, for a full inquiry into her death, the South African government, represented by its High Commissioners to Nigeria has promised to see that her killers are brought to justice.
In a close-door meeting with Dabiri, as well as Mr Chidi Ndubuisi Chukwu, the brother of the deceased at the South Africa High Commission in Lagos, Bobby Moroe, the Acting South African High Commissioner, who condoled with the Nigerian government as well as Nigerians in general, promised that his home government is treating the investigation of the case with the highest priority it deserves.
He stated that a video of the incident is being examined by the South African authorities and more information will be passed along as time goes on. In response, Mrs Dabiri said Nigerians are eager to see that justice is served in the matter for the sake of both countries and the family of the victim. The Consul-General at the Nigerian High Commission in South, Godwin Adama, is also said to be monitoring the investigation.
Her biodata
Born on April 20, 1966, to Dr. B.E.C Ndubuisi and Lady Mary-Elms Ndubuisi both of blessed memory, Uju, a Fellow of Chartered Institute of Insurance, passed out from Queens College Enugu, Enugu State and had her first degree at the University of Nigeria Nsukka. She went further to obtain her Masters Degree at NIBA ESUTH Business School, Lagos. Uju is a Fellow of Chattered Institute of Insurance. Though initially married, until her death, she was a single mother of 14-years-old boy. The fourth among five siblings and the first among the girls, two of her male siblings are said to reside in America.