By

Eze Chukwuemeka Eze

PREAMBLE

Today when great men and women are celebrated, I wish to celebrate one of the amazing, unsung and a great woman of God, a Prayer Warrior whose prayers made the difference in her husband’s life, Mrs. Elijalba Osima GINAH the wife of two time Commissioner in Rivers State, Barr Osima GINAH an enfant terrible, outspoken and fearless fellow described in some quarters as the Bulldozer of Rivers State.

My encounter with this wonderful and Golden woman started when her husband was appointed the Legal Adviser and Director of Legal Services of the then defunct Action Congress under the leadership of Prince of Niger Delta politics, Prince Tonye TJT Princewil and later appointed the Commissioner for Physical Planning & Urban Development under the administration of Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi and Commissioner for Transportation by the administration of Chief Nyesom Wike

EXCERPT FROM THE YET TO BE PUBLISHED BOOK TITLED, “THE MAN, BARR OSIMA GINAH: THE BOLD FACE OF THE NEW RIVERS STATE POLITICS” WRITTEN BY CHIEF EZE

Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze postulated that Mrs. Elijalba Osima Ginah who was born on the 5th of March, 1973 and the only and last daughter of Mr. / Mrs. Elis Tiger in Buguma among six sons is the wife of the erstwhile Honorable Commissioner for Urban Development, Transportation, Rivers State, Barr Osima Ginah.

THE LIFE AND TESTIMONY OF THIS AMAZING WOMAN OF FAITH

Mrs. Ginah a Nurse by profession shares the same fate of coming from a very humble beginning with her husband. “My desire has always being to marry a man that I will start life with knowing and contributing to his growth and success and I thank God that my prayer was answered in Osima Ginah.

So to say, I came out from a poor family. Some people were born with diamond spoon, some silver, some golden, but I was one of the people that were born with wooden spoon. I started struggling; I was following my Mum to fishing pond; and as God has it, my husband’s Mum was there and she was a close friend with my mum. So, one day, I picked up courage and told my mum that I will go to school. She said “which school will you go? Who will train you? I said, don’t worry. I will go to school. So, I tried school of nursing, and for the fact that I did not pass Chemistry, they did not take me. I carried on with my life. I started working with one printing press at hospital road, and worked with them for some time. The manger there was one Mr. Akande, a Yoruba man. I worked with them as a paper binder. That time I was living with my brother at prisons waterside. From there, I met an Igbo man who encouraged me to go to school since I have a result. I then went and took another exam for nursing and passed. I entered as a Junior Community Health Extension worker because I did not pass Chemistry. So, as I entered, I started battling and when our result came out, they said that I should go to the senior. I finished it with flying colours.

HOW SHE MET HER HUSBAND

But before I entered the school, I knew Osima. It was like a play. We were just like playing. I met him first when I went on holidays to see my mother because his Mum too was there. He said, come, are you going to school? I said no. I just wrote an entrance. He said, you better go to school. I replied, yes, I will go to school. He said ‘I love people that love school’. Later, he asked, who will train me? I said nobody, but I believe, if I pass it, God will help me. He then told me to let him know when I start school. That was how we started. It was like a play. In 1996 precisely, I was living with my Aunty and that time we were using water while going to Buguma and other villages, and we were living at Abonnema Wharf waterside. So, at times when I went to sell, I will see him well dressed. That is any time he was going home. He will ask, is it where you live? I said, yes, I am living around here. At times, he will give me money to come to his house, but because I was afraid of my Aunty, I will not go, and when he meet me next time and ask why I did not come, I lied to him that I came but did not see him. That time, it was like play. But, the fact is, if anything that is for you comes, it must reach you even though you are hiding. It must come to you wherever you are. That is how everything started”

To Mrs Ginah, Barr Osima Ginah is the best lover on earth, “You see! My husband has that heart to love, and he loves very well. The point is that as he is one who loves to play, one does not know when he is serious and when he is not serious. That time, some of my senior colleagues told me that my husband loves me, but he is that type that hides his love for a woman so that you will not see him as somebody that is dying for you all the time. He loves me so much but it was very hard for him to come out open for me to know that he loves me. In fact, he didn’t even tell me before that he was going to marry me. We were just friends. What I had in my mind is, now that I am making friend and I have finished school, if I get pregnant, I will start having children, because what I advise my colleagues is, if you want to go to school, you go to school, if you want to have babies, you stay in the house and have babies before going to school. That has been my advice to young girls. So, one day, I went to his house, he said, I have printed card. We will get married. I said, without letting me know. He said, “that is why I told you to come and be staying in my house”. One thing he said I always recall is ‘come and be staying in my house, leave your house. I said no, you are having one room, I am having one room, how can I leave my one room and come to your one room. He again said, “I have asked you to come and stay in my house, come and stay so that you will study me”. I said no because he had never paid my dowry, and I didn’t know that he was serious. So that was how we started relating until he was called to the Bar. After which, he came back and said, “We want to marry”, and I cannot say no, because something happened in my village. That time, rich men came and marry young girls in my village and after three months they die. One elderly man whose children were my seniors because he is rich, came and said that he would marry me, I said no, I will not marry, because I don’t want to die. He went to my mother and when my mother came to me, I told her, “If you have collected any money from him, go back and give him the money”, I am not interested. I knelt down and said “God, I don’t want to marry a rich man that I don’t know how he got his wealth so that I will not die in the process of the marriage. What I want is a man that I will start life with from the cradle so that when he will get rich I will know how it started and where it is coming from, so that I can enjoy it”. You know, I believe that whatever you open your mouth and say so it will be. I said this because that year, they brought three married young girls dead. The one that stayed so long was a year and three months. She came back with madness and died. So, with that anger in my heart, I said God, I want to start with somebody that I know how he got his wealth. The problem may be that those girls did not know the background of the rich man and got married with them. Maybe they used them for spiritual or part of their sacrifice.

So, when my husband came to marry me, I did not say no because I knew that he wasn’t rich. I knew that was where God was taking me to. But, the problem is that my family members objected the marriage because the first boy friend that wanted to marry me went to abroad. They wanted me to wait and marry him, but I said no. Even when he called me and started begging, I said no. he asked why I was going out with a Law student. I told him that I was okay with him on the ground that he was the one that was taking care of me when he abandoned me and go abroad. If I need N5, he will give me. If he has N50.00, he will share it. He will give me N30.00 and take N20.00; he was given me the larger part because he said that he could manage as a man, but as a woman, if I don’t have, I will go and look for men to give to me, and that he didn’t like. So, I cannot leave him because you came back from abroad. It is not done that way. That was how he left and got married abroad. That was how our marriage came to be, and it is God’s wish”.

Mrs Osima Ginah encounter with Barr Osima Ginah is a love story only meant for fiction novel but it is better told than imagined, it was a story of a student getting engaged to a fellow student and the poor getting married to the poor. “I got engaged with a student not that I was poor and I was going to the poor or I was poor and I refused to go to a richer person that will help me. No, the fact is, if you are prayerful and you listen to the words of God and put them into practice; you will get what you want. Even when I was going out with him, he has other girl friends. At times, I will go and what he will say is, “Can you come tomorrow”, and my reply will be no, I cannot come; you have other girls, let them come. At times, I will come and they will be quarrelling him because of me. One day, one said” this one that is washing your clothes is no longer your sister, because he use to tell them that I was his sister, and I was very tiny that time.

I got engaged with him because I discovered that he has a bright star. As a student, I saw the star. Though, he wasn’t very poor. And the interesting thing is that he did not belong to any cult or any fraudulent act. I know that one day, God will take him to somewhere. Though, I didn’t know how long it will be. Even, that time, some of my friends were advising me to be going out with other men since Osima cannot provide me with all that I needed. The even promised to be covering me up. But, I said no, I don’t cover anybody up. If we don’t have, we don’t have. They were even calling me many names when I was going out with him, but I did not listen to them because I knew that I was doing the right thing. My family people even said that I was insane, going out with a student. They said as the only girl, the last born, you are intelligent and you have gone to school. You are supposed to go to a rich man and bring money to the family. But, I said no because I had confidence in Osima. Because of my courage to marry Osima, a woman did our wedding cake free of charge. Her name is Kalamama. To God be the glory that our risk and experiment succeeded and I am telling you all these for our younger ones not to be deceived by riches in looking for their future partners. Today, God is still taking us to a greater height and his appointment as a Commissioner is just a stepping stone to where God is taking us to”.

MRS OSIMA AND HER THOUGHT ABOUT POLITICS

To Mrs. Osima Ginah, politics is a deadly game and I don’t want my husband to be involved with it “but who is me to dissuade the almighty Ginah when he makes up his mind to play politics though I would like to be seen as an obstacle to God’s calling in his life. I have to resort to prayer as the means to keep him going. I know that you know that my husband is a vibrant lawyer. I don’t pray for myself at times. I pray for my husband because even that law profession is not an easy one. One day I told him that he will one day be the Attorney General of the Federation because of his performance. My mind didn’t tell me that one day he will join politics. When he entered politics, he told me that a group of people in the village were asking him to join and contest for any elective position, I tried to discourage him because I don’t’ like politics in this state. It is a do or die affair in this state. I told him that I didn’t want to lose him, as people in the village are bad. But he asked him not to worry, that I should only pray for him. I had no other option than to be praying for him. He then went in for the House of Assembly election. When he failed, he said that he would contest it in court, alleging that the election was rigged by the PDP. One day he came and told me that he had taken the case to court with the support of Priny Tonye Princewill. I advised him to be very careful”.

How does Mrs Ginah cope up with the risk and threat on their lives in their struggle to make an impact in the State? I don’t feel comfortable any time he goes out because of politics. I keep on praying. At times, I prefer to follow him because my prayer partner said that I was his bullet proof. I feel comfortable when we stay together. I even developed high blood pressure that time because I was not seeing him regularly. Even the day I delivered our baby, he was not there. He was in the hotel.

FIRST APPOINTMENT OF HER HUSBAND AS A COMMISSIONER AND BER EEACTION

Appointment of Barr Osima Ginah as a Commissioner and the intrigues behind the scene and the involvement of this pillar in whom Osima is today. “Before my husband was appointed a Commissioner, there were numerous challenges. Some people took the duty of blackmailing him in the village in order to stop him from getting the appointment. When this was going on, I told him not to fight them. I quoted Psalm 35 which is my favourite Psalm. I took up the challenge by praying every day. I embarked on fasting on his behalf. When Tonye Princewill was nominating him, he said that the governor needed a lawyer and one that read land litigation which is my husband’s field. We did not relent in praying until God answered us. And when his name was announced, it did not surprise me because it was like I was already there. The last day we prayed with our pastors, we saw prophet where people were congratulating him. They told him not to forget God if he enters there.

So, when the announcement was made I felt happy and said that I can now rest. But, God said, no, you can’t rest until the bad is over. During the reception ceremony after the swearing in, I saw things that I did not like, and told my husband to leave the place but he did not listen to me at the initial time. And that day, one of his brothers was shot by unknown gun men”.

MRS OSIMA AS THE WIFE OF A COMMISSIONER

Mrs Osima Ginah as the wife of a Commissioner – how palatable it is to be the wife of a risk bearing Commissioner like the Commissioner of Urban Development in Rivers State. “My brother, it is not easy o! The risk he is taking is too much. One, he is risking his life. Two, he is risking that of his family. Three, he is risking that of his relations. Why I said this is that he steps on many toes. Example is the day he demolished that three story building, people came and said that the owner of the building is Soboma George’s relation and that Soboma was threatening him. (Soboma George was one of the dreaded militants in Rivers State before he accepted the amnesty of the Federal Government of Nigeria). When he returned and I told him of what I heard, he said, ‘don’t mind them. I am not afraid as far as what I did is right and constitutional’. I said okay, if all these are in the constitution, continue. I also advised him not to do anything that is contrary to the law because the Bible said “When the righteous rules, the people rejoice”, and knowing full well that my husband is the type that needs justice; I backed him up with prayers. But, one thing I believe is, as far as you are a human being, people must talk about you. And once they don’t talk about you, you are dead. It simply means that you are not progressing. As they are talking about you, God will take you higher if you are on the right track. People talk too much. Because of it, I don’t use my MTN line again. The threat calls were too much. I was only answering the names I saved in my phone. At a point, they began to hide their numbers while calling me. The point is, since he is working for the government and according to the law, I don’t have any reason to stop him than to back him with prayers”.

Though most of the actions of the Government will bring hardship to a lot families but the fact remains that if the correct things are to be done, people are bound to protest. People do not like change but as I told you earlier, Osima met me at my Abonnema Wharf residence but I must tell you that I encouraged him to start the demolition from Abonnema Wharf. I am hundred percent behind the demolition of the waterfront because of the bad boys from the different communities that operate there. Some are from other states doing bad businesses like sale of cocaine, Indian helm, and others. What I said is that they should develop it in such a way that people will live in it comfortably.

Some people mocked the family when the Governor dissolved the Cabinet but listen to how this great lady handled it. “I said, “God if it pleases you, let it be. I called my husband and said” have you heard the news? He said yes, no problem. He was in Lagos that day. When he returned, he made up his mind to return to his chambers if they fail to recall him, and we took the time as a period of rest and prayer. I told him that he would be called back if at all he did well, but if he did not perform he will not be recalled. We kept praying until he was asked to submit his CV for re-appointment.

WHO IS BARR GINAH IN THE EYES OF THIS GREAT LADY

In the eyes of the public, Barr Osima Ginah is seen as a rigid and difficult personality but to Mrs Ginah, “No. he is not rigid. He is flexible. The reason is that he cannot demolish illegal structures that belong to people and leave his sister’s house that is also an illegal structure. It is not fair. The best thing is for all of them to be demolished. The truth is that Osima is not only a gift to me but a gift to the people of Rivers State and he is ready to die for the State. He is a free-minded person, kind, faithful to duties, God-fearing and sincere. He is not doing the job with fear or favour. What he promised the people of the state is what he is doing. He even started it with our own church, at Bonny Street, Formal Cultural Centre, and the members took it as the work of God. One thing about him is, if he asks you to do something, you try and do it well and at the right time. He doesn’t like wasting time in whatever he wants to do. He has no hidden agenda. In the first place, when they were demolishing Bishop Johnson area, his aunt’s house was among the houses they earmarked for demolition. He called her and told her that there was no going back, but when they finish, and she discovered that what they did is wrong, she can protest. He assured to help her get another apartment if he has money. The house was demolished.

MRS OSIMA AND BER COUNSEL TO YOUNG GIRLS

This is a story of the poor marrying the poor, a story better told by the characters involved than to be written or imagined but lets us once again hear this lady described by he daughter as an Angel on earth tell us how she feels about her past and present. “At times, I used to remember the past, and I use to advise my friends and other young ladies that are yet to marry not to look at wealth while choosing a man. Let them listen to what God is speaking through them. If you know how to pray, you must listen to the voice of God. What some ladies are out for is, how many cars does he get, how much do you have in your account in the first place? I do tell people, that what my husband had in his account when we wanted to marry was just N10, 000. And I saved N6, 000 by myself. So what we had was N16, 000. 00. I use my past to advise my friends. All that I know is that I must advise them whether they will take it or not”

As this awesome lady celebrates her Golden age, I pray God to grant her better and greater years ahead IJN

Happy birthday my friend and sister!

I miss your wonderful food.

Eze Chukwuemeka Eze is a Media Consultant based in Port Harcourt and can be reached either through 08022049770 or ezemediaconcept2020@gmail.com