The Enoma Family Scandal

Comfort Obi

If the dead could feel any shame, then Calus Enoma, a lawyer and the former Edo State Commissioner for Information must be squirming in his grave in shame. Given the chance, Enoma would have chosen to die in a more honourable and respectful manner than he did. So, what is so scandalous about Enoma’s death? The young man was hard-working. Perhaps, he was also a good husband to his wife, Julie, even if he was also an adulterer. The story of the Enomas is one laced with drama, anger, and shame. Here it is.
Calus Enoma and his wife, Julie, had been married for 14 years. They had no child together. But two things: Calus had a 14-year-old child, a girl, out of wedlock. And just before his death, nature played a trick: Julie became pregnant – a blessing that was not known to the other members of the Enoma family. Perhaps, the two wanted to hug the news to themselves until later.
But their plans went awry. On March 31, Calus Enoma was found dead in a hotel room in Benin. His death was engulfed in controversy. First, the state government declared him missing, and quickly pointed accusing fingers at the Action Congress Party and its governorship candidate, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole. When the Commissioner’s body was discovered two days later in a hotel room, naked, and in a state which the state's Deputy Governor described as horrible, the state government quickly apologised to Oshiomhole and the AC. The police investigation revealed the obvious.
Enoma died of cardiac arrest. And he was not alone when he died. He was in the company of his girlfriend. The girl, a student of the University of Benin, had phoned him earlier on, a call which made Enoma to dash to the hotel, paid for a room, and went in with his girl to have, as soft-sell magazines would put it, “quality time.” But it went awry. In the frenzy, Enoma collapsed. His scared girlfriend started to pour cold water on him in order to revive him. But no deal. She did what she naturally felt was the best thing to do. She fled. But left two exhibits behinds. In Enoma’s pocket was the letter she had sent to him to cancel her trip (so as to be with him). A more telling evidence was her GSM handset which she, in panic, left behind.
The police pounced on the phone, and made a mince-meat of all the theories, especially those propounded by the Enoma family. They arrested the girl, who in tears, told them the truth. Mercifully, the police decided to protect her identity in order not to destroy her life. A post-mortem examination confirmed the police report. But the Enoma family wouldn’t have that. They were intent on not only displaying their ignorance, but on letting the world know that their son died while committing adultery in a hotel room. They kept insisting that he was killed, that he had not been known to be ill of any serious ailment; that there was a cover up; that the post-mortem was a ruse.
Initially, my sympathy was with them. I felt they were saying all those to cover up. I mean, who would publicly accept that their son died while committing adultery. I felt they were saying that to calm down his wife, Julie. I mean, one of the worst nightmares any woman would have is that her husband died while in another woman's arms. She would feel like spitting on his corpse.
But it turned out the Enoma family was, excuse this cliché, adding insult to injury. Instead of the members to cover their faces in shame, and appease Enoma’s wife, they rather spat on her face. They showed that some human beings are worse than animals. While Enoma’s body was still in the mortuary, they pounced on his property. They took away his two cars, and left his wife and daughter with none. And as if they had been wishing their brother's death, they began to cruise around in his cars. Then, they did the unimaginable. They drove Julie and Enoma’s daughter out of the house. And said they were entitled to nothing. They said Julie had no child for her husband. In their custom, they said, a woman who had no child for her husband is not a wife. And even if she had a child, and it is not a male child, it was still of no use. Meaning: His daughter too is useless. Told that Julie was pregnant before her husband’s death, it meant nothing to them. If she didn’t have a child while her husband was alive, why should she have it behind him, they asked.
The state's Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Anthony Omoruyi Omonuwa (SAN), described what the Enoma family did as shameful. And called them greedy. He was lenient.
Where are Edo State women? Especially, where are the women from Enoma’s village? What did they do while the Enoma family treated Julie like a piece of rag? Were they in support? Could be. In most places, it is the women who are so stupid and ignorant and wicked that they humiliate any woman whose husband dies. They make her go through hell as if she was the one who killed her husband. They seldom ask themselves what the men do when their wives die. Give some of them one month, they are making it out with a string of other women. Again, the question: what did they do, especially when they said that rubbish about male and female children? And what have the various women organisations in Edo and elsewhere done since then? Julie's husband died while cheating on her, and instead of the family apologising to her, they are talking nonsense.
Julie should wake up and fight her battle. She should do that for her unborn baby. Did Calus make a Will? She should check. She lived with him for 14 years. Those years cannot be for nothing. She bore everything, including adultery, which led to his shameful death. She should sue the family for the disgrace.
The Edo State government has promised not to let her suffer. But for how long? Who knows what will happen tomorrow? They should give her all the support she needs now, in order to get her honour and dignity back. As for the Enoma family, all one can say to you is: Shame!