By Eze Chukwuemeka Eze,
Preamble:
When I got wind of the wedding anniversary of my kid brother – the indefatigable and enigmatic Barr. Osima Ginah and his beloved wife, Deaconess Elijahba, a few hours ago, I ruminated extensively on the most appropriate way to celebrate this couple whose trajectory in the journey of marriage explicitly underscores the true essence of matrimony.
With an assemblage, in my console, a dossier on this couple given that I have done a book on the family, I settled to extract a portion of the work where Deaconess (Mrs.) Osima gave a fresh insight into the person and personality of Barr. Osima Ginah in a style peculiar to better-halves of her sort.
The Excerpt-
MY LIFE WITHOUT BARR. OSIMA GINAH IS WORTH NOT LIVING –
MRS. ELIJAHBA OSIMA GINAH (WIFE)
Mrs. Elijahba Osima Ginah who was born on the 5th of March, 1973 and the only and last daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ere Ellis Tyger, in Buguma, among six sons. I am a public health practitioner by profession, from a very humble beginning.
My desire has always been to marry a man that I will start life with knowing the source of his wealth.
My reason for saying that is because of the happenings in my mother’s community where I lived and schooled from my primary to secondary, what was happening to young girls that got married to wealthy men who came around and did societal weddings and marriages after six months or one year they will bring back the girls dead, some mad, so I have to change my prayer point. The above statement not marrying a rich man, made my people disowned me, friends said am in sane, our neighbour Aunty Kalamama is one of them that say those words to me and asked me if I have parents and relations that am following Osima Ginah, that her own sister she chased her out of Osima’s house, so the time I was planning for my marriage, I told this lady and she said if actually that’s true she will bake my cake free of charge and she did it because indeed it was true.
I will say my marriage with Barr. Osima Ginah is by God’s divine intervention and grace, because I wasn’t preferred at all by all standards but I will say that even before we were conceived God knows that we are destined for each other Jeremiah 1:4-5.
So I came from a poor family, some people were born with diamond spoon, some silver, some golden, but I was one of the people who were born with a wooden spoon or will I say without a spoon at all, but I have the belief that Jesus was born in a manger signifies a humble beginning too, so one day God will make something out of my nothingness, that God will use me to break the pattern in my family. Jere 29:11 (for I know the thoughts that I think towards you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil to give you an expected end).
How I was trained in school of health technology 2Tim 2:15a (Study to shew thyself approved unto God).
I gained admission first in 1994 in school of health my name was published but because I didn’t have Eight Thousand Naira to pay, the principal then was Doctor Mpi he sold my space to another because my mother’s first son that promised to pay for me died and there was no one else to pay, so I forfeited it. Then I started living with different relatives of mine at different locations, in the year 1996 I lived with my Aunty in Abonnema wharf, marine police quarters to be precise, so I met a friend and a neighbour whom I used to know back then while I was staying with my late elder brother at Prisons waterfront who asked me to go and pick the form again that he was going help me follow it up, so I obeyed him and was finally given admission, I told my mother about the said admission and my mother busted into tears and I had no option than to join her in tears.
That was how my journey started, so after my first exam I traveled to fishing port to stay with my mother for holidays to enable me look for money for the session thereby helping my mother in periwinkle business, and that was where I met my husband first, then later at Abonnema wharf waterside while he was traveling to Buguma, we were using the water ways then. As at then, my boyfriend now my husband was also in school, University of Science and Technology, whatever little he has he like sharing with me, I was admitted as a junior community extension worker but when they review my result, it was higher than the cadre I was given so from there I was upgraded to senior community extension worker, and I have already said to myself that I will break my family pattern by going for higher level of education, so with the help of God Almighty and my husband, I got my BSc in Public Health from National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) and by the help of God and my dear lovely husband am still pursuing my Master’s degree programme because the man God gave me loves school and wants everybody around him to be educated, I sincerely and whole heartedly appreciate him for that.
To Mrs. Ginah, Barr. Osima Ginah is the best lover on earth.
You see my husband has the 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. Those days, 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 someone 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 mention the issue of marriage to me then, we were just friends.
So that was how we started relating until he was called to BAR, after which, he came back and said, “we are getting married”, and I couldn’t say no. one day an elder 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 return the money to him” 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, that all I wanted was a man that I will start with from the cradle so that when he will get rich I will know how it started and where it is coming from.
So when my husband came to marry me, I didn’t say no because I knew him too well that he wasn’t a bad person or a ritualist and was not rich, but the problem was that my family members objected the marriage because the first person that wanted to marry me went abroad, so they wanted me to wait and marry him, but I said no.
My Husband’s Political Life:
To be very candid, I never wanted him to join or to be involved in politics, my reasons are; joining politics can make someone to live a double life, womanizing, shedding innocent bloods, belonging to one secret cult or the other, lack of attention and affection, not always there for the family, these were my fears but nevertheless in my husband’s political life reverse is the case.
So when my husband talked about joining politics I didn’t give him any answer until he asked Pastor Andrew to come and talk to me too, for me to agree for my husband to be involved in politics, it took more than 2 months, the Pastor said my role is to pray for him. He contested for a position, I think House of Assembly and he lost, after all the money that we spent, later he said he wanted to be Prince Tonye Princewill’s lawyer but he is not paying him and that Tonye is his cousin, so after everything Tonye has to settle him with the then Governor Amaechi, at first they offered my husband a caretaker chairman for 3 three months in ASALGA I said no, I don’t want it, later my husband asked me what do I want? I told him Commissioner he asked me how will that be possible? I said I have the impossibility specialist that is my God. Then I could remember I was at work doing immunization and my husband called and said that since I want Commissioner I should pray very well that so many people are lobbying for it, I told him don’t worry our place no one can take and it came to pass, that was the beginning of his political journey and since then I have not cease to pray for him.
Osima Ginah is like Joseph in the Bible that passes through thick and thin to get to where he is today, he is a raw gold that passes through fire by God, for him to be in the show room, you will ask are there no other people from his LGA, Community and Ward? Why Osima at all times, there are other people yes, but grace found him.
The God that brought Joseph from the prison and made him a Prime Minister is at work in the life of my dear lovely husband, the husband of my youth, the father to my lovely and adorable damsels. Joseph, saw the dreams in different occasion and told the dreams to his brothers and his parents and they envied him the more that is the story of my husband.
Because the devil is a bad devil, they accused my husband wrongly and alleged that he is a murderer, then kept him in the ATM for three months, hide his files, planning to poison him to death, so that he will not become what God has predestined for him but Lamentation 3:37 has this to say (who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?) the people he helped in the prison after gaining their freedom did not remember him just like as it was in the case of Joseph in the Bible, and when the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion we were like them that dream and our mouth filled laughter and our tongue with singing (Psalm. 126:1-2). And my husband was discharged and acquitted.
Then the God of Elijahba started taking him from one level to another just as in (Joel 2:25-27) God restoring all the years Osima Ginah has lost, he was in almost all the different administration whether he knows someone or not, it’s the same thing that happened to Joseph, every governor or king that comes always want to work with Joseph. Osima Ginah, is to be trusted, he doesn’t betray, he is not fraudulent, not a cultist, not a ritualist, he has integrity, straight forward, loyal to a fault, above all the fear of God; he doesn’t fear man but God alone.
In the eyes of the public Osima Ginah is seen as a rigid and difficult personality but to Mrs. Ginah, he is not rigid but flexible only trying to do his work with fairness without fear or favour, he is faithful to his duties, doesn’t witch hunt anyone, doesn’t take bribe from anyone, he is a man with a very large heart that accommodates everything and everybody, a friend of all, even though he is been abused severally in the public he doesn’t take offence and I used to be very angry when he is been abused and insulted by people. As the first commissioner of urban development his first assignment was to demolish His Local Worship centre, some other commissioners may avoid that.
There is no glory without story; when I think of my past, I will not want any female to pass through same path which I passed, but must always focus on God not on how much a man will give to them and stop pushing men to go and steal for them to eat and women to stop being a liability to their husband because the bible say the woman is an help meet for the man, not a competitor, women should stop looking for men that have made it and look for men they will build with as Elijahba did, get rich syndrome is the cause of many broken homes.
APPRECIATION BY DEACONESS ELIJAHBA GINAH
“Thank you everyone for celebrating with us, God will make celebrations to happen in your lives and families back to back in Jesus name Amen.”
Conclusion
I plead with all my friends, Media Partners and Associates to join me and celebrate this wonderful couple on this auspicious period of their wedding anniversary.
As I wish my brother and his dear wife happy wedding anniversary, I pray God to grant the them more fruitful, greater and better years ahead together in good health IJN
May you two live to see your grandchildren IJN
Happy Wedding Anniversary Barr & Deaconess Osima Ginah
Eze Chukwuemeka Eze is a Media Consultant and Author based in Port Harcourt, Rivers State and can be reached through 08022049770 or ezemediaconcept2020@gmail.com
