Senator
Hope Uzodinma's plan to marry 2nd wife in church crashes as his first
wife raises alarm after he reportedly married a 25-year-old lady in a
secret traditional marriage at Owerri.
Senator Uzodinma in white during the marriage introduction for his new wife in the middle
During her visit to the corporate Headquarters of The Leadership
Group in Abuja yesterday, the first wife of Nigerian politician,
Senator Hope Uzodinma, who is representing Imo West constituency in the
Nigerian Senate, Mrs Augusta Uzodinma, has raised an alarm over her
husband’s plan to get married to another woman and asked the Catholic
Church and all concerned in the new marriage arrangement to indefinitely
call off the plans, stressing that she is still legally married to the
Senator.
She made this known, alleging that the ban of the marriage has been sent to the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Maitama, Abuja. According to her, she was legitimately married to Uzodimma and has consummated their union both in court and in the Catholic Church. The Senator had reportedly married this second wife on Saturday January 3rd 2015, in a secret traditional marriage at Owerri.
According to Mrs Augusta, they “got married when Uzodinma had nothing, let alone people hearing about him as is the case today”,
and have had five children together, until 1996 when he asked her to go
back to her parents that he was going to travel down to have some
issues cleared with them.
She said, “At a certain point in time I discovered that my husband, began to behave strangely towards me, and I asked him severally in private why he became changed all of a sudden, he said he was still the person I used to know, that there was no problem. Then I learnt to keep my peace, only for my husband to accuse me of changing, saying the thought of seeing me around him was a threat to his life.
I was confused because I Knew I loved him with all my heart and could not have become a different person to him after several years of marriage that produced five kids. But he insisted that I left and, out of fear for my own life, I had to leave. I have been waiting all this while for him to come to my family so we can settle our differences for me to go back to my marital home but he never did, and we have not divorced.
He has kept our five children and prevented them from seeing me all this while and told them I am late while I am alive. He is my only husband. I still love him till tomorrow in spite of my detention at one time by the police and all that I suffered at his instance over time. How can the same Catholic Church, which I know abhors polygamy to the latter, wed him and another woman when our marriage is still valid?”
Documents presented to Leadership Weekend by Mrs Uzodinma, revealed that the church marriage between the couple was performed by Rev. Fr N. C. Onwujiariri at the Maria Assumpta Cathedral Parish, Owerri and signed by the administrator, on 12th April, 1993, while the court’s own was signed at Marriage Registry in Lagos on the 5th day of June, 1996.
Mrs Uzodinma said all she wants is to reunite with her family and appeals to the Church and all who care to empathise with her to ensure that the planned second wedding of her husband does not hold.