A 33-year-old woman, Mrs Nwamaka Chinwendu, who gave birth to twins, has lamented that her husband, Amajiri, abandoned her and her two-month-old babies because she gave birth to twins through a caesarean section.
Amajiri hails from Igbo Etche, in the Etche Local Government Area of Rivers State, while the woman is a native of Ameka village, in the Ezza South LGA of Ebonyi State.
The family, however, lives at Mile 50, Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital.
Nwamaka recalled that when she was pregnant with her first child, her husband informed her that it was a taboo in his hometown for a woman to be delivered through a caesarean section.
She said she was fortunate to have been delivered of the child without any surgical operation.
The woman, who spoke to our correspondent on Tuesday in Abakaliki, said trouble started when she went for an ultrasound at seven months of her pregnancy and was told that she was carrying twins.
She said when she broke the news to her husband, he became angry and told her to abort the pregnancy, but she refused.
He began to beat me without any provocation. He stopped helping me with house chores. I went for another scan before delivery and I was told that the babies were not well positioned and that they were positioned with their buttocks. The sonographer said we should hope that the babies would position well before nine months.
“But when it got to nine months, one of the babies turned, while the other didn’t turn. So, I was told that the only way out was through CS. When I got home and told my husband, he said I was on my own. He started nagging that CS and twins were taboos in their culture. He said if I wanted the marriage to continue that I should abort the babies.
“Since I gave birth to my twins (a boy and a girl) two months ago, he has abandoned us. He did not come to the hospital; it was my elder brother that paid the hospital bill and he has been the one catering for us,” she added.
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Mrs Chinwendu, who said her husband claimed to be a marine engineer but never dressed up for work one day, noted that he always provided for them before the arrival of the twins.
She said she was no longer interested in the marriage, adding that all she wanted was for her husband to take care of his children.
Husband petitions police, accuses in-law of kidnap
However, the state Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Loveth Odah, said Amajiri wrote a petition to the police, alleging that the woman’s elder brother brutalised and kidnapped him.
She said, “The allegation before us is different. This woman’s husband came to the police with a petition, alleging that one Mr Arinze Utobo beat him up with seven others, kidnapped him and locked him up in a wardrobe; that is the allegation before the police.
It was in the process of investigation that we found out that the suspect in the matter was the woman’s elder brother.
“It was when we arrested the suspect, including the woman with twins, that we now asked if the woman was part of his problem. We now got to know that she was the wife of the man who came to lay allegation that he was beaten up and kidnapped by Mr Utobo and seven others.
“The woman came up with her own story that since she was pregnant and discovered it was twins, the husband said in their community in Rivers State it is a taboo to have twins and to also deliver through a caesarean section.”
Odah noted that the state Commissioner of Police, CP Aliyu Garba, had ordered investigation into the incident.
Amajiri’s in-law, Utobo, denied kidnapping him.
He said, “He abandoned his wife, who gave birth to twins and ran away for two months and did not ask after their whereabouts.
“So, one day, I saw him at the Abakaliki Stadium with two women and I asked him if what he did was OK.
It was then that I told him to take me to his house so that I could get his wife’s clothes, because it was just one wrapper that the woman took to the hospital the day she put to birth that she had been using. It was then that he threatened to deal with me and started alleging all manner of things.”
Efforts to get Amajiri proved abortive as calls to his phone rang out and text messages were not replied to as of press time.
