How Victims Must Handle Domestic Violence – The Osinachi Example

The media space has been inundated with the death of gospel singer Osinachi Nwachukwu and how she died.

The ‘Ekwueme’ singer passed away from spousal abuse as it was reportedly a kick on her chest by the inhumane husband that led to a blood cloth that ultimately led to her demise.

She did not die of throat cancer as was erroneously reported when the news broke as revealed by her family members.

According to a quote attributed to Osinachi’s elder sister, the husband of the singer, Peter Nwachukwu contrary to reports has not been arrested and is currently a free man in Abuja.

Several people have espoused reasons why a married man or woman must remain in or leave a toxic marriage.

To make something clear, men are also victims of violent crimes at the home front, at work and marketplaces but the crux of this piece is not to apportion blames.

Women are unarguably the ones who suffer domestic abuse the more. Men too are victims but the ratio is quite different.

One key factor that could mitigate such vices from happening is to expunge the wedding vow: “for better, for worse.”

That phrase has single-handedly sent several irrepressible women in ‘crazy’ affairs to their early graves. The situation is not helped by some clergies who insist that women who die in the hands of their husbands are like matyrs.  Really?

Our ladies must be told to make extensive findings about the man they intend to spend the rest of their lives with. That is where skills acquisition, formal education, good saving culture come in.

Parents, religious organisations, civil society groups and the government through media campaigns must enlighten eligible spinsters and bachelors on the ills of a rushed marriage.

In time past, some fathers saw the need to give out their daughters and female relatives out in marriage for financial gratification which in itself is wrong.

However that was when crime rate were not as terrible as we have it today.

Me thinks that it will make sense if married women get permement homes in their fathers’ houses. Let the husbands come around and see them there and leave afterwards.

A question that comes to mind: Didn’t Osinachi have a father, uncles, brothers, nephews? The husband decided to stop her sister from visiting her at the hospital when she was diagnosed of having a heart condition from the kick on the chest.

Osinachi agreed for fear of her husband and for ‘what people may say’. Many so-called homes are slave camps where numerous crimes are committed.

Nothing is ever wrong for a woman or man to respect their partners but when abuses come in the form of physical assaults or even verbal abuse, it should be time to take a walk whether children are involved in the marriage or not!

The death of Osinachi is saddening. Her musical talent was not handed to her by her wife-beating husband so it is not as if he was her god on earth or the only source of her survival.

Many more details are being unravelled in this unfortunate incident but this is one gory story that should be a lesson for men and mostly women.

No matter the love you have for your spouse, don’t remain in that relationship for what people might say or do.

Someone raised a salient point. If Osinachi had left her marriage, would she still be able to perform at events like before that or be taken seriously when she released another gospel hit song?

The answer is probably no. But a dead person don’t get music gigs or indeed any other good things.

Say NO to slavish marriages, relationships, jobs, and so on.

Osinachi was rendering great gospel songs to us capable of making the worst of sinners turn new leaves but we didn’t pay attention to her words crying out for justice.

Let the living take heed and prevent such avoidable deaths.