RIPPLES
Multiple award-winning filmmaker Zik Zulu Okafor has told those who care to listen that the marriage of late actor Obinna Nwafor aka Saint Obi caused his death and made him abandon Nollywood.
Zik Zulu who made this known in his farewell message to the late actor on social media while commenting on his untimely death said the actor’s divorce from ex-wife Lynda Saint-Nwafor is one of the reasons Saint Obi passed kicked the bucket.
According to him, Saint Obi lost contact with his Nollywood buddies and distanced himself from the film industry after he parted ways with his estranged wife Lynda.
He said; ‘‘Saint Obi’s social life was blunted. Perhaps by his reticent disposition.His persona, two dimensional.
‘‘To a distant public, he was upscale and cool . His manly bearing spoke loud.
‘‘His onscreen image ironically amplified some idiosyncrasies; heroics, romantic adventures and traits that did not gel with the mortal privacy that eerily define his quiet and lonely life.
‘‘Saint Obi, real name, Obinna Nwafor, was shy, almost bordering on timidity and insecurity.
He cherished the pleasantly tranquil interactions among a few friends.
‘‘He would vanish at any outburst that could upset the poise of such small meetings. As he repeatedly told me, he just wanted to live a cool, quiet and fulfilled life.
‘‘But, has he lived this cool and fulfilling life he envisioned ? I have my doubts.
‘‘I tell Saint’s story here with painful tears in my eyes ; because he was a star, a super star whose life turned out a gleam of irony.
‘‘Yet, it was this stardom that fetched him his much professed financially strong and powerful wife.
‘‘And their wedding, that solemn ritual of love would drastically alter the cause of his life and tragically yank him off the creative community that threw him up for the wife to capture and indeed conquer.
’’Their marriage was at best a dramatization of love. It was quick.
‘‘He barely told us that he found a wife.
‘‘Then, the marriage happened. It was something of a mystique, only those involved understood the histrionics that played out.
‘‘None of us who were his closest pals, who walked with him through the crucible to the crest of his career in Nollywood, none of us was invited. The distance between us and the guy I admirably called Saint of the Storm had begun.
‘‘This gulf would widen with each year. We saw him perhaps once in a year after this marriage.
‘‘And life actually seemed to have given him a fair shake of the dice.
‘‘He dressed well, drove big cars and even his skin, in literal lingo, spelt wellness.
‘‘The Saint would be blessed with three beautiful children. But not on one occasion were his friends in Nollywood invited for christening or birthday. We were told that his wife was of the topmost hierarchy in telecom giant, MTN …
