Pastor Paul Enenche has broken his silence following the passing of a member of his church and popular gospel singer, Osinachi Nwachukwu, insisting that his church does not tolerate domestic violence.
Osinachi died last week in Abuja with her death sparking some controversy and the deceased family formally filing a complaint of culpable homicide against one Mr Peter Nwachukwu who is her husband.
Days after the “Ekwueme” singer’s death, the founder of the Dunamis International Gospel Centre maintained that his church doesn’t condone any form of assault and battery on women.
“As a church, we have a zero degree tolerance for domestic abuse and wife battery of any sort,” Enenche said on his YouTube channel.
“If you ever listen to any of our relationship messages, there is a principle, a policy, and a rule we have that is ‘it is better to be alive without marriage than to die because of marriage.’ We have said that over and over.”
Enenche claimed he was unaware of the supposed violence suffered by his deceased church member, maintaining that the claims sounded odd to him
“If there was domestic violence that led to or coincided with those symptoms that she came with two and half months or three months ago, there is no way I would know and if there had been perennial domestic violence, there is no way I would have known,” he said.
“The things that we are hearing after her passing are things that are strange to my hearing.”
The 53-year-old also stated that on probing into Osinachi’s death from family members, he was informed about what was transpiring in her household
“Then I began to ask questions. First, I asked the twin sister: ‘Were you aware that your twin sister passed through all these things?’ She said ‘yes’ she knew some of these things and that majority of them, she heard from those she confided in,” the cleric explained.
“I asked her if you (Osinachi’s twin sister) knew, why didn’t you let us know and the twin sister said she always begged her not to let the church and the pastor know. ‘Please, just pray for us, the man will change… and that continued to happen’.”
When he decided to question the late singer’s son on his father’s alleged brutality, Pastor Enneche said “the young man told me that they couldn’t tell me because their father will always ask them after they left me what did you tell the pastor? Did you tell him anything? and so on and so forth”.
Meanwhile, Osinachi’s Nwachukwu’s husband has been arrested days after her death in hospital in Abuja.
“He is now in our custody. The younger brother of the deceased reported the matter and we have commenced an investigation,” Abuja police command spokeswoman Josephine Adeh said.
Fellow gospel artistes, who had worked with the late singer, accused her husband of domestic violence.
“One time in a studio, this man slapped her just because she wanted to record the song in Igbo against his will. She does not do anything on her own,” Frank Edwards stated on an Instagram live video.
“She would say, please beg my husband. She was at his mercy. I didn’t know the intensity of what she was going through; I didn’t know how somebody would be jealous of the wife he claimed to love.”
However, the husband has denied accusations of battery and assault.