Burial war Pastor’s wife abandoned in mortuary for over 2 years

 My in-laws want N.5m before I bury her-Clergy

 We asked for only N.2m-Family

Death is the inevitable end for all humans and after that the body is committed to mother earth, the final resting place. This is, however, not the case for Mrs Caroline Ibe (nee Egwuo) whose corpse has virtually been abandoned in a mortuary in Lagos for more than two years now due to a dispute between the deceased’s family and her husband who pastors a thriving church in the Yaba area of Lagos.
The late Mrs Ibe hailed from Abba in Nwangele Local Government Area of Imo State and married a popular man of God, Prophet Timothy Ibe, founder and General Overseer of Resurrection Power Ministry, Sabo Yaba in Mainland Local Government Area of Lagos State. She was said to have died more than two years ago as a result of cancer of the breasts, after which the body of the mother of four children was deposited in the morgue of a teaching hospital in Lagos to give room for burial preparation.Saturday Sun learnt that while the burial arrangement was ongoing, disagreement ensued between the deceased’s kinsmen and her husband. It was further gathered that her kinsmen demanded that her husband must pay them N500, 00O, an amount he refused to pay.According to Prophet Ibe, the demand was baseless and uncalled for. He described it as a plot to discredit him and bring his name into disrepute.

“I wonder why my in-laws should decide to make such demand when they witnessed how I battled seriously to save the life of a woman I wedded both in court and in church. They know very well that I spent all I had to save her only to come up with the utrageous demand”, he stated.The prophet, who spoke through his Assistant, Pastor Moses Okonkwo, further explained: “It is a family matter and I wonder why they should go that far. She was struck by breast cancer. Because she had never done a mammogram, so when the problem started, she did not know. It was later a consultant discovered it. And it was then that it dawned on everyone of us that we were in a serious trouble. Then we took her to Federal Medical Centre, Ebute Metta, Lagos and thereafter, one of her breasts was removed. We thought that the problem was over. But after two months, the other breast was affected. That was when the real battle started.”He said she was referred to Lagos UniversityTeaching Hosoital (LUTH), Idi Araba, where she underwent another series of tests. “We were asked to do a chemotherapy, and at a stage, when the woman needed urgent attention, doctors went on strike. We tried every possible means to ensure that she was given attention. At a point, we followed one of the striking doctors to his lodge, begged him to attend to her, but he refused and ordered the security operatives to push us out. We did all these, yet she died. Surprisingly, when she finally lost the battle, instead of showing sympathy, her family revolted and these were people that throughout the time she was sick, they did not show up or made any financial contribution to save her life.

They only came when she was at the point of death. And the day they visited her at the hospital, she told them not to make any trouble if she dies, as if she knew their plans.”The pastor wondered why he is now being asked to make a huge payment to the family before he could bury the mother of his four children. “So, when they made the demand, the pastor told them that he does not have such amount of money to give them, after spending a lot on her hospital bills. He begged them but they insisted that the burial will not hold, if he refused to pay the money. When they insisted, he wrote and appealed to them severally to give peace a chance and allow him bury his wife. But they refused. At a stage, the family accused him of being behind the death of his wife.”He, however, vowed that the burial will hold before the end of this year as he has already communicated that to his in-laws in a letter sent them early this year, adding: “While the disagreement lingered, the mortuary bill has now accumulated to over N2 million.”
One of the brothers of the deceased, Mr Rufus Egwuo, however, described the claims of Prophet Ibe as false, pointing out that no family member asked him to pay N500,000 before burying his wife. “Timothy made false claims. Nobody asked him to pay N500,000 before burying his wife. He is only trying to cover up his mistakes and misbehaviours against our family. Is it not a shameful thing that someone who claims to be a man of God is making a caricature of himself by abandoning his wife in the mortuary for over two years? The truth about the matter is that he refused to marry our sister according to our tradition.

We told him what to do, so he brought N10,000 only, but we refused to accept that and told him that he could not marry our sister with such little amount of money. In the process, one of the family members collected the money from him with the hope that he would fulfil the marriage rite later. He left and since that time, he refused to do anything. So, when our sister died, we decided that he will complete the marriage rite and everything amounted to N200,000. Thereafter, he left, promising to get back to us. But we did not see or hear from him.  Meanwhile, he told us that our sister will rise after two weeks of her death. After sometime, we approached him and he kept on giving one excuse or the other until the thing got to this stage.”
Egwuo further explained that all efforts by his family to ensure that Prophet Ibe buried his wife failed. “We have met him severally on the issue but he felt less concerned. Now, the mortuary bill has gone beyond N2 million. When we met him recently, he told us that he would sell his landed property in Lagos to bury our sister, only for us to find out that he is not the owner of the property. As we speak, he wrote our family that he will bury his wife before end of this year. So, we are waiting.”