Mrs Onyishi, wife of the man who sacrificed his seven-year-old son for money ritual, has narrated her experiences since October 20 when Chidalu, a homebody, suddenly went out and never came back again.
The mother-of-six told the BBC she returned to their home at 25 Taylor Avenue Coal Camp, Enugu, that day to find that Chidalu, her third child and second son, was not at home with his siblings.
Which was unusual. Her kids don’t venture out when she asks them to remains indoors. Stranger still because her neighbours had no idea where he was.
When she asked Onyishi on the phone, he too had no idea, though he responded after so many calls that he didn’t take.
When he later rode home in his tricycle, he kept denying he knew the boy’s whereabouts.
The National Daily earlier reported Onyishi and his pastor had killed and buried the boy in a shallow grave at the bank of a stream in Abakpa-Nike, Enugu , as part of the ritual to help the father of six get super rich.
But he nonetheless informed his mother Chidalu was missing, and he later informed the police.
“He then called his mother to let her know their son was missing,” she said.
He left home, and not long after then, he called his wife to stop crying before the neighbours whom he called witches and wizards.
Mama Chidalu said she immediately began going from one prayer place to the other, and they all said her son would be found.
“One Saturday, 14 days after the boy went missing, I was home when my husband came back and asked if I cooked. I gave him food, he ate and slept,” she said.
“I then heard a knock on the door and when I opened it, it was one chairman in the area who asked to see my husband.
“I went inside to wake him and as he was about to go out to meet the chairman, I asked to go with him, in case the visitor had information about their son. He told me not to.
“But after a while, there was an uproar outside, and she came out to see what was happening.
“I saw a crowd and police officers accusing my husband of killing tour son for rituals. He was taken away,” she told the BBC Igbo Service.
All along, Onyishi had been manifesting questionable behaviours.
Mama Chidalu said whenever she was doing midnight prayers, shouting to God to bring her son home, her husband usually warned her to stop shouting.
She refused. At a point, she begged her husband to tell her if he knew anything about their son’s disappearance
He threatened to beat her.
“He told me ‘If you ask me about Chukwudalu again, I’ll slap you’. That if he kills me here, is there anyone who will ask him why?” She said.
“I told him, yes, I don’t have a mother or father to speak for me but Jesus is my mother and father.”
Jesus apparently had been her husband too.
According to her, she suffered when she was pregnant with Chidalu because her husband didn’t provide anything.
She said she was starving because there was no money for food. Even after birth, she had nothing to eat and it was her mother-in-law who begged people for charity before she got food donations.
Now he sacrificed that same child thanks to his 95-year-old blind pastor.
She said Okeke Eneokowor was Onyishi’s new pastor.
Formerly, the whole family was Catholic. Suddenly, he started going to the pastor’s church and tried to make her go with him but she refused.
“I made it clear my kids were born into the Catholic church and children shouldn’t be forced to do what they don’t want. When they grow, they can then decide which church they want to go to but you can’t force a person to your church,” she said.
“He initially told me he went to Sabbath church. Later, he said he didn’t go to Sabbath that he was a pastor on his own. I didn’t even know it was Olumba Olumba he was going to.
“Because whenever I ask him about the church, he’ll start shouting at me and threatening to slap and kill me.”
Onyishi has confessed to the police, and even led them to the river bank to recover the remains of the boy.