Jim Nwobodo, Sons War Escalates Over Burial Site Of Late Son

From Ignatius Okpara, Enugu – The family war between one time Governor of old Anambra State, Senator Jim Nwobodo, and his sons, on Tuesday took a new twist as the elder statesman disowned them, alleging that they stole the corpse of their elder brother, Dr. Ifeanyi Nwobodo, last Friday, 5th December 2014.

African Examiner gathered that the crisis was caused as a result of refusal of the former senator to allowed the remains of the late son be buried in his ( the father’s) compound.

Our Correspondent reports that the development had prevented the burial of the late Ifeanyi on the 5th of December. Ifeanyi passed on at a private Hospital in Enugu on Sunday November 16, 2014.

Speaking with newsmen in Enugu, Nwobodo, who was visibly pained by the development, said; “As I speak to you people now, I don’t know where the corpse of my son is. It shows the character of their mother.

“Please I want to make one appeal to the media, I have only one wife (Patricia), I divorced this woman (ex-wife) before I became governor

(in 1979).

“Please don’t write that I have two wives; save me the Embarrassment of haying matrimonial problem, the Church would not have wedded me if I had another wife.

“The children don’t have my flesh and blood in them because if they do, there are certain things they will not do.

“My children who have my flesh and blood (children of Patricia) lavish love on me; to steal the corpse of their brother, it’s unheard of, it’s an abomination,” he lamented.

The former governor and senator also declared never to have anything to do with the burial again, saying, “after that day (December 5th, 2014), as far as I’m concerned I have completed the burial, I will never be part of it again.”

Going down the memory lane, the former Minister of Sports, explained that his late first son, Dr. Ifeanyi Nwobodo (Jnr) was sick for months and hid it from him, noting that it was somebody who visited him and saw that he was dying that raised an alarm and informed him (Nwobodo) upon which he made arrangement with the help of his wife to get American visa and flew him to Houston Texas.

Senator Nwobodo stated that his son though at stage four of the cancer, was already cured at Anderson Medical Cancer Centre in Huston Texas USA, one of the best in the world, and was asked to stay longer in USA but that he returned to Nigeria because of pressure from his (Ifeanyi’s) wife.

He added that when he came back and developed pains on the legs, he (Nwobodo) took him to a consultant oncologist with the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, UNTH, Enugu.

He revealed that the doctor instead of taking his son to the teaching hospital where there are facilities for emergency, the consultant rather referred his son to his private clinic where the doctor administered his son with an injection that led to complications and his eventual death.

Nwobodo further explained that his present country home abode was a piece of land he acquired and not ancestral home.

He said that his children never showed him any sign of protest until the day of burial, when they went to the mortuary and “stole” the corpse, when all the dignitaries that came for the burial had arrived.

Nwobodo said that he was not supposed to be the one to bury his son, and was not supposed to see the corpse, and so to bury him in his compound where he wakes up every day and beholds the site of the grave would be a psychological torture on him.

Besides he said that as long as he is still alive, he reserves the discretion to decide which of his children would inherit any of his property.

According to him, when the church intervened and the siblings agreed that the remains could be interred at the church premises nearby which he Nwobodo, personally built and was commissioned by Arch Bishop of Canterbury in 1982, he accepted, only for his children to rescind the decision.

The ex- governor, said that the traditional ruler of the community also tried to Intervene by accepting that the corpse be interred at the ancestral

home of the Nwobodos but again his children refused.

He said he heard that the children have rescheduled the burial for December 16, 2014, without informing him.