…Says no woman wants to marry him because of it
Family insists he’s insane
From Emmanuel Uzor, Abakaliki
If there is anything Ugochukwu Onyemelukwe, a 34-year-old man needs now it is a marriage-partner. Onyemelukwe, a staff of Federal Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki, has been groaning over series of rejection from women he had asked their hands in marriage.
According to him, his woes began in 2014, when he became sick and was referred to one Dr. Michael Ilodianya, a consultant with Department of Psychological Medicine in the same Federal Teaching Hospital where he works, for treatment, and he, allegedly, diagnosed him as having symptoms suggestive of mental disorder.
Now Onyemelukwe believes that the result of his mental status as issued by Dr. Ilodianya, was concocted as part of the plot to deny him his family birthright and render him useless for the rest of his life.
“Recently, I got sick and was treated at the Federal Teaching Hospital. But when I fully recovered, I saw a damaging test result purportedly signed by one Dr. Michael Ilodianya, a consultant at the department of psychological medicine,” Onyemelukwe recalled in response to inquiry by Oriental News.
“In that report, I was painted as suffering from major mental disorder and that has been haunting me. I can’t get married because each time I saw a woman and proposed to her, people from my family would take a copy of the said report to her and she would decline. It has been like that since after my treatment in 2014. When I couldn’t bear it any longer, I petitioned the Commissioner of Police over it in November 2015, and she invited some of my family members and warned them to stop the blackmail.”
Onyemelukwe almost wept while recounting an ordeal he suffered in the hands of certain girl he was in love with, of how she rejected him, on the day of her bride price payment, based on the same reason that he was a certified mad man.
“I had a beautiful girl I had proposed to and she accepted. Even her family members accepted me as their son-in-law to be,” he told Oriental News. “We have been relating. But on the day I was to pay her bride price, something unfortunate happened. I got there with my people and were waiting for the commencement of the marriage rite when somebody from my family asked the girl if she knew that the car she wanted to buy is having brain-box problem. Initially, the girl didn’t understand what the guy meant until her brothers took her inside and probably interpreted the meaning of the word to her and she immediately called the marriage off.”
Alleging hatred, Onyemelukwe points an accusing finger at his father who he claims to have had some issues with over the years, as the brains behind his ordeal. He claimed that his father had not only shown to him open dislike but also done everything possible to deny him his entitlements and birthright as a son in the family.
“I see this medical report as another plot by my father and my family to deny me my right as a free-born, to make sure I go empty handed,” he insists. “At first, he said he is not my father, that my mother was already pregnant with me when they met and decided to get married. I said, ok, let’s go for DNA test but neither my father nor my mother is willing to do that.”
The damaging medical report
But the medical report issued on March 21, 2014 and signed by Dr. Michael Ilodianya may soon become an object of legal battle as Onyemelukwe had threatened to go court to enforce his fundamental human right.
A copy of an explanatory note entitled, “Re: Onyemelukwe Ugochukwu, male, 34 years, and sent to the State Commissioner of Police on February 11, 2015 has been made available to Oriental News.
It reads in part: “The above named patient was first seen in our clinic on the 21st March, 2014 with a year history of symptoms suggestive of a major mental disorder. He was assessed and treatment commenced, and had been getting better but defaulted since 11th April, 2014. We are writing to you as requested by the elder brother.”
The mention of his elder brother in the letter, Ugochukwu insists, shows that he (elder brother) allegedly connived with his father and the medical personnel to tag him a mad person so as to deny him his family inheritance. Because of that, he has vowed to fight on. In fulfillment of his resolve, he had sought the services of some lawyers and they are in the process of taking the matter to court.
He called on the general public to disregard the so-called medical report as false and a concocted tissue of lies from the hospital in connivance with his family to blackmail him.
Contacted, Ugochukwu’s brothers said that although they are not ready to join issues with him, they maintained that their brother is mentally ill. They held that the medical report and incoherence in Ugochukwu’s stories attest to the fact that he is not mentally balanced.