The Uduaghans, Nere And Eweta, 25 Years After


BY WILLY BOZIMO

That they have lived together as husband and wife for 25 years is amazing.  How time flies. To many admirers of the first couple in Delta State, they seem like they had just been married for just five years. Every time the divinely-propelled couples are on display, either in a church service or state functions, they seem to be in a permanent state of  celebration and spreading light and joy amongst thousands around them.

What manner of couples are they? How did they meet? Was it like the proverbial love at first sight? Or there was the usual dating and loving, writing of love letters like telling your beloved: ‘You are the only sugar in my tea, and at the back of the envelope, you write ‘with a thousand kisses?’

The Uduaghans – Roli Nere and Dr. Emmanuel Eweta – came into the consciousness of the people of Delta when he was appointed the Commissioner for Health under the former Governor, Chief James Onanefe Ibori .

But long before that, the two love birds were led to the altar in Warri at the First Baptist Church  on February 20th 1989. In a rare and privileged interview with the First Lady during her 47th birthday celebration, I asked her one poignant question: How did the union between Roli Tuoyo and Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan come about?

The prayerful and deeply religious First lady told me: ‘It was a divine arrangement. It was not love at first sight. He was working in Delta Steel Company (DSC) and my uncle was living there then and we started dating and seeing each other. And as God would have it, we got married and we have never looked back’

That was and has been the spirit between the First Lady and her darling husband, Dr. Uduaghan, both of them ageing gracefully and blissfully in a marriage that has turned out to be the envy of many couples, who wished they were in their shoes.

But marriages are not beds of roses. And when marriages endure the span of a quarter of a century, it is quite significant and worth celebrating. That the Uduaghans, the First Couple of Delta State had stayed glued together like inseparable twins, speaks volumes about their patience and trust in God.

It is said – and this is true – families that pray together also stay together.  Governor Uduaghan, a homeboy brewed and bred  from the clear waters of Mosogar in Ethiope West Council Area did not have a silver spoon in his mouth and, like most kids of his time, he fetched water, firewood and even set traps to catch little animals in the local forest. Times without number, he had spoken passionately about his grandmother who literally brought him up. On her side, Roli Uduaghan, too, was brought up by a father, an Army Brigadier, Sunny Tuoyo, who incidentally became Military Governor of old Ondo State.

She may have gone through some disciplinary drills from a soldier father and combined that with her strong religious background and general love for the less-privileged and humanity like widows and children, you then have a perfect housewife and mother.

The two love birds who had endured their individual profession – induced limitations  like  a medical doctor working long hours in hospitals and now a governor of a state with myriad of problems running a state as Delta, with all its distractions and rumour mills, sufficient to knock down a man not as  determined as Governor Uduaghan.

On her part as the First Lady, she came with a bang. Her current dress code and gele reminded me of the days of Maryam Babangida, who stormed our shores with a special head gear and a programme code-named ‘Better Life for Rural Women’

From being the wife of a Commissioner for Health through being the wife of Secretary to the State Government (SSG) and finally as wife of the State Governor takes much than just prayers but a lot of good works have gone into the marriage to make it bond together  for 25 years.

In the early years of courtship and marriage, a few little stories filtered into my ears which made interesting reading for people who do not know. They had both  appealed to each other  to love themselves,  unconditionally, and it was like a sing-song affair when the wife was reported to have told  her husband thus ‘’Give me an air-conditioned car , like the one in the Benz, not like the one in the Volks’

On several occasions, Dr Uduaghan himself had told all those who cared to listen that as a young doctor ‘’ I drove a small Beetle  car  called Volkswagen in Warri, but as  life changed our  fortunes, we  moved from Volkswagen  to Mercedez Benz car properly air-conditioned ’.

The twosome are as equally religious and God-fearing but whether they are also man-fearing is quite another matter. I know Governor Uduaghan had always felt bad about how Julius Caesar was stabbed by someone very close to him- Brutus. He thought this aloud during one of those thanksgiving ceremonies in Asaba immediately after winning the governorship election for the second term at the                 Winners Chapel, along Ibusa road. At the back of his mind, he is very alert about friendships that can be mischievous and keeps him worrying about the nature of human beings.

But that  has not stopped him from doing good to as many people as possible and in like manner, the First Lady, also likes doing good to people who are, in need, especially pregnant women and little children and widows.

There is symbiotic interface between a husband and his wife, all working in unison for the common good. In her MASTER CARE PROJECT, she has touched the lives of many widows and pregnant women in Delta, while the husband is busy building hospitals and maternity centres and general hospitals for the good of humanity across the three senatorial zones.

Her passion for widows is clear testimony of her love for womanhood in her life.   She told  me, four years ago, why she cares for widows: ‘Every woman in Nigeria knows what  widows go through in the hands of their sisters and brothers inlaw and relations when their husbands pass on. Some widows are forced to sleep with the corpses of their husbands for weeks without having their baths. And others are accused of being responsible for the death of their husbands and even called witches. And in some extreme cases, the bathwater used in bathing the dead husband are forced on the widows to drink from. And the worst part of the story is that widows are chased out of the homes of their husbands with nothing left for them. I am moved by our religious injunctions to take care of widows. Long before I became the First Lady, I had prayed to God to give me the strength and courage to take care of widows as a Divine Mission.’

Mrs Roli Nere Uduaghan, from the records at one’s disposal, is a tested housewife and mother. When she got married in Warri to her hearts desire she was open-hearted and minded enough to allow her mother inlaw, Madam Cecilia Uduaghan, to stay with them for 10 years. In most situations, if a mother inlaw can stay with a wife successfully without bringing the roof down over petty little quarrels over who owns the home, then such a wife had passed the litmus test in marriage.

By that singular act and patience in accommodating a mother inlaw in this day and age, also goes to show how diplomatic and caring the First Lady has been. From our general experience in most marriages in the society today, miscarriages occur because of little gossips and  misunderstandings between mothers-in-law and wives over who controls the son’s chop money  between the mother of the husband or the wife of the husband.

We know, as a fact that most mothers are so uncomfortable with their daughters inlaw, especially, when so much money coming from her son is being spent by the wife without recourse to the mother of the husband.

For the First Lady, she believes that as ‘’Christians, our light must shine and brighten up the people around us. If you ask me, God has His favourite people and I want to regard myself and my husband as some of His favourite people on Earth. God has been very kind to us. Good or bad God is behind our success so far’.

Twenty five years of blissful marriage has meant they could go for the next twenty five years, sure-footedly   as they have shown to all and sundry that they are God’s special and beloved couples in our clime.

One of the things that has made the Uduaghans’ marriage of 25 years to be smooth sailing is their joint belief in God and their mutual commitment to serving and praying to God to show them the right path to follow.  For me, Mrs. Roli Nere Uduaghan has proved,  like most  dedicated wives  that she is not just as a wife and make babies for him but that she is the main pillar of spiritual support for her husband. When she clocked 47 years in 2008 (four years ago), she impressed me with this quotable quote ‘’ Any man that does not know the value of a woman is doomed to fail. And if any woman does not support the battle of the Man, the Man would lose the battle. My husband has a mother  and women believe in what women are worth, as worthy vessels to accomplish any ventures.’’

The love story of the Uduaghans has a lot of lessons for many men and women, boys and girls. As a guidance counsellor, she is very much involved in

Preaching morality to all men and women and she deplores the current craze in town. ’”Today I am not comfortable  at all with the way women, men and girls carry on as if they do not fear God. Now, it is the married women and the girls that are running after and pursuing these men. As for the young girls, even those whose parents are capable of taking care of them, they are usually loaded into buses from different campuses of higher institutions of learning and lodged in hotels waiting for very important personalities for a mess of porridge. It is very degrading for womanhood.    This problem of immorality destroys a person, a nation, because I believe that out of every 10 women, there is a Delilah, waiting to pull down the men from their heights to the bottomless pits. Presidents and Governors and great men have been known to have been toppled by these women of easy virtue.’

With this kind of sermon from the First Lady, who has been able to keep her family intact and not allowing any interlopers to invade her privacy and that of her  matrimonial home , the signal is clear to all would-be trespassers. What else can one say that, as fulfilled couples 25 years after their historic marriage when they were not celebrities but now that they are first family of Delta state, I think they have paid their dues as husband and wife and we will like to join them in this feat of making marriage as an easy affair, effortlessly.

What God has joined together, let no man or woman try to put asunder. Holy Ghost Fire for all the bad belle rumour mongers. The marriage is blessed  with a teenage boy and a lady – Orode and Toju, with  a little grand-daughter from Orode.  They  want it that way -a small and tightly  packed  family, especially, for Governor Uduaghan, who comes from a polygamous family of many wives from his father , I think it makes sense to have a manageable family one can take care of.

There may be strength in large families and a large number of children, but things have changed, and, perhaps, the smaller the better. Keep trudging Roli and Eweta. It is not your fault it is God’s doing.