Elijah Adebero
Obumnaeme, son of a former Director General of NAFDAC, the Nlate Dora Akunyili, has said that some pastors contributed to her death and that of his father.
Obumnaeme, in an interview with Chude Jideonwo, says his mother who was also a former Minister of Information, went to several churches to see pastors for healing after she had been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.
He said many of them used the opportunity to collect money from her while giving her false hope.
Also Read: DSS reacts to video alleging it killed Dora Akunyili’s husband
About the death of his mother, he says:
“She was more like ‘God would heal me’;
She went to who is who;
she spent all the money, sowed all the seed.
So, I felt it was a racket.
In Nigeria, we don’t call it crime or anything, but I felt there was a hustle.
She came back and said they needed to do a scan that God had healed her.
And I remember my father was crying when he was taking her to do the scan.
He knew what they would see.
And he wasn’t trying to shut it down; he was trying to dampen expectations.
But my mum, you know how someone is like ‘God has healed me’.
And they went and they see the mass of the cancer there, grown larger, and my mum just became a shell for like three days.
And you just see someone, a larger-than-life figure just whittling away every day.”
Also speaking about his father who was murdered by unknown gunmen in Anambra, he says:
“I’m still dealing with it.
I was with my dad that day.
We went to the event together.
We came back home, I took the Onitsha road, I saw him go this side, and suddenly, I started getting calls that my cousin had been shot.
I found out my father had died by watching the video of him dying on the floor on Facebook.
That’s how I knew my father died, I found out on Facebook.
And this was a larger-than-life man.
And just seeing him struggling to breathe and everybody is there videoing it.”
