The death of Osinachi Nwachukwu, celebrated gospel artiste based in Abuja, shocked the whole country as well-meaning persons, including Senate President Ahmad Lawan; the Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Dame Pauline Tallen and top clerics, condoled with her family
The 42-year-old was the lead singer at the Dunamis International Gospel Centre, DIGC, headquarters, Abuja before her death. She was also a mother of three sons and a daughter.
Meanwhile, her marriage to Peter Nwachukwu, who hails from Omaboma community located near Ukpor in Anambra State, has been alleged to be marred by domestic violence which triggered health complications that led to her death.
As horrific as the tales of abuse she reportedly suffered in the hands of her spouse may have seemed, many people who knew Osinachi and associated with her very closely say the gospel music star accepted her situation in life as God’s design.
They also testified that the mother of four children, while on the sick bed in her final days, hinted that her death would be a function of a race of life well finished.
Narrating her encounter with the late gospel music star before her death, Ebube, who was Osinachi’s close confidante, said the deceased told her that if she didn’t make it in hospital, she would be fulfilled because she had done what the Lord asked her to do.
Ebube told Sunday Vanguard that Osinachi saw apparitions of Christ Jesus, a few days before she totally submitted to her Maker, asking her to start “packing” her things “for it is time to go.”
She added that she was sure the late gospel music artiste was in heaven.
The lady said, “Osinachi told me on her hospital bed that this was the time to go on Thursday morning (a day before her death). She was okay and laughing. Thursday morning, Osinachi told me now she was very happy and that her joy was complete.
“That same Thursday at the hospital, Peter (Osinachi’s husband) was so uneasy around her. He kept asking me ‘What was I doing in the hospital?’ The man kept reminding me that, hasn’t he asked me to always inform him before coming to see his wife?
“But Osinachi was playing her song ‘Nara Ekele’ that day. She told me twice she saw Jesus looking down towards her from above.
Osinachi also said that she saw two pythons fighting around the hospital atmosphere and Jesus told her to start packing her things.
“I also remember that at the ‘Nations Worship’ programme where Osinachi ministered and said God told her to start packing, Peter didn’t want her to attend that programme because of a ‘picture issue’ at that time, but I told him that the people she was supposed to minister to will give their lives to Christ, that if they didn’t, God will hold him responsible. That was when Osinachi now came to the programme.
”The night before she died, Osinachi called me on phone and said: ‘Make fried rice for me’. I told her.
‘Please, can I bring it the next morning, because I was just coming in that night?’
“She was now trying to say something, but the husband came around her screaming, ‘Rest, rest, rest!’ and we couldn’t continue the conversation. So, in the morning when I came, I met people crying.
“Osinachi is an angel and now dwelling among the host of angels in heaven. She kept talking about heaven. The last time I spoke to Osinachi I told her that she had to be strong for her children.
“I was actually the one who brought the buns Peter distributed to people after Osinachi died. I made the snacks for her children. I also brought the fried rice she asked for. I told the children ‘Your mother wanted fried rice, and that fried rice you will have’.
“I once told Peter to his face ‘Why is it that you don’t know how to manage people?’ I also told him that I was not happy with the way he was treating his wife.
“Rather than respond directly to me, he turned to Osinachi and started querying her, saying ‘So, you have started this ‘soul tie’ thing again?’ He also said that he had not fully succeeded in separating her from her twin sister, and now he has started another one with me.
“Peter used to tell Osinachi that it was he who made her a star and that he was like a Siamese twin to “daddy” (Pastor Paul Enenche). He also kept telling her that she was anti-social.
“This is particularly funny, because he is the one who is anti-social in many ways. He was merely projecting his self-image on her, but didn’t realise it. Peter doesn’t associate with people around him, but Osinachi is just a jolly good fellow.”
Journey to hospital
Speaking on Osinachi’s journey to the National Hospital in Abuja where she eventually died, Ebube said: “Despite having two functional cars, Osinachi was brought home from the Federal Medical Centre Abuja in commercial vehicle.
“She okay, but the next day, she called me again to say ‘Oga’ (her husband) was taking her to the hospital again.
“Later she told me that what they saw in her heart region were like blood patches and that she vomited blood profusely. I think they suspected cancer initially and did her biopsy, but the doctors didn’t find anything. God will use her case to set a lot of women free (from domestic violence).”
On Osinachi’s music, Ebube said the late gospel songstress also called her to say she dreamt and beheld herself passing on a microphone to her twin sister, Amarachi.
“Osinachi recorded about four or five songs before her death and gave them to me in a hard drive to upload on her streaming platforms, but Peter seized the hard drives and the songs,” she added.
However, Sunday Vanguard gathered that the producer of the unreleased works still had digital copies of the songs in his computer system.
Mrs Idoko, another friend of Osinachi and fellow chorister at DIGC, corroborated Ebube’s account.
According to her, Osinachi, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, once said ‘It was time to start packing our things to go’.
Idoko went on, “Yes, Osinachi told me she had a vision of two pythons were fighting and that she kept seeing some negative forces around the hospital. She also told me about another dream that she where she had handed over the microphone to her twin sister.
“To my surprise, when we came to their house on Sunday which was barely 48 hours after she died, Peter was sharing water, minerals and buns to us.”
According to Gracious, another worship leader in DIGC who met with Osinachi in hospital before her death, Peter (husband) did everything humanly possible to prevent her friends from visiting and praying for her on the sick bed.
“Peter told me to be calling him and not Osinachi directly, because I ‘know that she is sick’”, she said.
“But when I called Osinachi and finally got through to her, she told me ‘Don’t mind my husband. Just come to the hospital and see me.’ This was because she knew that every time I called to say I was coming to visit her in hospital, Peter will tell me not to come that he was not around.
“Even on the Friday that Osinachi died, before her demise, I told him (Peter) that I was coming around (hospital). He told me not to, because he was going out, but that he would call me when he returned.
“Peter didn’t know I was already in the hospital. He was so shocked and ashamed when he saw me right there. The nurses said Osinachi was just smiling and saying ‘Thank you, Jesus!’ before she died.”
Osinachi’s younger brother’s account
Osinachi’s only surviving brother, Chiemerie Eze, also shared his last moments with her before she was pronounced dead by doctors.
The grieving sibling said, “When Osinachi was sick, I went to the hospital, but Peter refused to let me draw close to my sister to know what was going on.
“The day I visited, he was visibly annoyed and approached to query why I was speaking with the doctors and asking them questions. He also questioned my right to ask the medical personnel questions about his wife who was my blood sister.
“Right there, I began to wondering whether he was in his right senses to be telling me all these and asking me that kind of question. That was when I began to sense foul play.
“After he embarrassed me at the hospital, I kept my cool. Then he later came around where I was reclining and told me that it was cancer that was afflicting my sister. I became all the more curious and started snooping to find out what exactly was wrong with my sister.
“On Friday that Osinachi died, someone called me to ask, if I had heard from my sister and and I said ‘No’. So, he simply asked me to endeavour to hear from her.
“Shortly thereafter, Peter called me to say he had lost his wife. I dropped the call on him immediately. He probably kicked her in the chest region, because she kept telling me ‘My chest! My chest! while I was with her in the hospital.”
Likewise, a cousin of the late gospel star who flew into Nigeria from his base in Turkey last Monday, said he sensed something was amiss.
“I can’t even understand why Osinachi couldn’t open up to tell anybody about all that she was passing through in her marriage. She just changed. It is not normal,” he quipped.
Meanwhile, contrary to reports, Osinachi’s elder sister clarified that Peter was not a minister in DIGC.
“They made Peter Nwachukwu a pastor at Nicholas Ukachukwu’s prayer ministry not in Dunamis church,” the sister said.
The woman also maintained that Osinachi never knew about her husband’s first marriage with another woman in church.
“My sister never said anything about another wife. She couldn’t have known about it and not tell anyone including me,” she said.
Unlike what Osinachi’s sister observed in the Nwachukwu residence where only people in small groups were visiting the family, she said their house in Enugu is now like a Mecca of sort following the news of Osinachi’s death.
“Every day at our house in Enugu, it is like a pilgrimage ground. People are trooping in to console us. You will think Osinachi lived with us there. Some really irate youths who visited us in Enugu were ready to ‘redesign’ Peter’s body. While our family does not support violence or endorse taking the law into one’s hands, we thank Nigerians at home and abroad who have committed to fighting for justice in my sister’s case. Justice for Osinachi is what we really seek,”
she said.
