Post by trend_queen (@lydia_okeke)

Part 2

I drove home, Chukwudi was in the sitting room watching football. He saw my face and muted the TV.

I placed the death certificate on the center table. I placed the NPC printout next to it. I placed my PVC collection slip next to that.

He did not pick them up. He rubbed his palms together.

He said, "Chinwe, I can explain."

He explained.

In March 2025, his mother pressured him to marry a second wife from the village because I had not given him a child after five years. The girl's family asked for N2 million bride price. He did not have it. He remembered my cooperative insurance. He went to a hospital in Mushin with a friend who works in records. They created a death certificate. He took it to the cooperative. They paid him in April.

He used N1.8 million for the bride price. He used N700,000 to rent a small flat in Mowe for the new wife. Her name is Ifeoma. She is 23. She is currently pregnant.

He said he did not mean to kill me on paper permanently. He said he planned to "resurrect" me later after he had settled. He said the INEC record updated automatically from NPC, he did not know.

I asked him, "Chukwudi, for 18 months I have been dead, and you have been collecting my salary?"

He said no. He said only the insurance.

I logged into my pension portal from my phone. My next of kin is still him. My status is active. I logged into my cooperative portal. My status is "DECEASED – ACCOUNT CLOSED."

I have been contributing N5,000 every month since April 2025 to a cooperative that thinks I am dead. The deductions still leave my salary. Where is the money going?

He did not answer.

My phone rang. It was an unknown number. A woman's voice. "Good afternoon, is this Mrs. Adebayo? This is Ifeoma, your co-wife. Chukwudi said you know now. Please, I am begging you, don't report him. I am seven months pregnant."

Co-wife.

I am sitting in my car outside our house now. It is 4:22 PM. Chukwudi is inside packing a small bag. He says he will go to the village to "correct the mistake." Ifeoma is still on the phone, crying. The NPC certificate is on my passenger seat. The INEC printout says I died on March 15, 2025.

I have not died. I am 33 years old. I have a job. I have a PVC I cannot collect. I have a husband who buried me on paper to marry another woman.

The NPC officer told me I need a court order, a newspaper publication, and a letter from my husband admitting fraud to reverse a death record.

My husband is the fraud.

Should I drive straight to the Lagos State High Court in Ikeja right now to file a suit to declare myself alive and have Chukwudi arrested for forgery, or should I go to the cooperative office first to collect the CCTV footage of him collecting my N2.5 million death benefit so I have evidence before he runs?
Advise her

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