Challenges

Ohuabunwa says he encountered three major challenges in early marriage.

“One is the challenge of a young man and infidelity. I was a boy around town, and when I married my wife, I still had some other extramarital activities. Of course, it was going to cause problems. Sometimes you come home late and in all kinds of shape,” he says. “But that was solved the day I gave my life to Christ. The day I got born again, that behaviour ceased. I couldn’t solve it myself because I tried New Year resolutions and it didn’t work. You hold it for one or two months, and by the third month, something you didn’t plan for happens. Sometimes, you may not ask, but if they asked you, you didn’t know how to resist. But when I gave my life to Christ, I became a faithful husband and a good father.”

He adds, “The second problem was having enough time for my wife. Wives like their husbands around. If you cannot give enough time to your wife, that would cause trouble. Again, two things worked for me here. First was bunching. Second was being able to show result for all the absence. If you are always absent and they ask money for food, school fees, rent, etc., and you are not bringing light, they would say, what is all this not being at home? I, therefore, made a policy that unless God didn’t provide, if my wife needed anything I could afford, I will not hold it back.

“Fortunately, for me, my wife doesn’t need much. There is no vanity in her life. She is just simple; she doesn’t wear gold or makeup. So the little she wants, I try to make sure I provide. Then, showing her genuine love. The other one is openness. When you become open to your spouse, it builds confidence and suspicion goes down. When you say, this is what I want to do; they feel better that you have taken them into confidence.

“The third problem I had with my wife is the issue of relationship. My wife is introverted, I’m extroverted. That relationship starts with the children. My wife is very attached to the children, I’m not so attached. I believe they should be given more freedom; she thinks children will always be children. But what I do is to defer to her, because I find that it is better to be careful than to be sorry.

“Also relationship outside. My wife prefers minimum relationships; she likes to be on her own and, therefore, feels that I’m over-exposing myself. How do I deal with that? I deal with that by letting her know that God has created me with a mission and a purpose, and all I’m doing is in line with that purpose and mission. Overtime, she feels the consistency and begins to adjust to it. She was telling my brother recently, if I see my husband at home for one week I’m wondering whether everything is okay.”

He believes that in every marriage, there are times of misunderstanding or unhappiness. “But what heals it is true love,” he says. “If you pattern your life where there is genuine love, and you subscribe to a faith and follow the tenets of that faith in your relationship, because your closest neighbour is your wife, you won’t have much problem.”

Ohuabunwa started his career in 1978 in Pfizer Products Limited, a drug manufacturing firm. He rose to become the company’s chairman/ chief executive officer in 1993, and led the management buyout of Pfizer Inc. from Pfizer Products Limited in 1997. Following the buyout, Pfizer Inc. was transformed to Neimeth International Pharmaceutical Plc and he remained the president/chief executive officer.

He has interests in many companies and businesses, and he is on the boards of a number of firms.

A knight of St. Christopher of the Anglican Communion and a national director of the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International, Ohuabunwa maintains a busy schedule packed with family, business, and church activities, as well as travels.

He says, “Within the context of my schedule, I build in relaxation. I don’t have any time I devote as relaxation time. Of course, there were times when I used to go and play golf, but I don’t do it anymore.

“My work is varied. I know that what would kill somebody is when you do a job that requires a high level of concentration or consumption of your energy, physical, emotional, spiritual. I am a busy person. But the way to make sure I don’t burn off is that I integrate my work with pleasure or relaxation.

“I’m social. I attend parties. And most of the time, I am before God. I’m a lay minister.

“I travel a lot, but in my travels, I also create opportunity for relaxation. In the aircraft I may put ‘do not disturb’, and I’m sleeping. “I go to community meetings.” Though, retired formally, Ohuabun- wa says, “I am working harder than when I was in full employment.” He believes every man needs God’s guidance to decide how to avoid burning off or imperilling the ability to fulfil his destiny, “because everybody has been brought here to do the work of God, and you must accomplish it. Otherwise, you will have questions to answer.”

He recalls his own personal strategy for making up for his absence to his family.

“When I was bringing up my family, because I travelled a lot, I didn’t have enough time for my children. I was aware,” he says. “But good for me, my wife compensated for me. But what I used to do was that what I lost in quantity, I gained in quality. I worked out a system such that if I am at home, I would bond so much with my children that when I leave them, the taste of our last activity would linger. They would look forward to the next time we are going to meet and they create a new excitement.

“During holidays, I would take them out, drive my car. In those days, every Sunday I used to drive my children to church, and back. After church, we stop somewhere, have fun. I was conscious that I wasn’t giving them enough time. But I compensated that by giving them quality. We would drive together, come to a hotel and everybody would stay in one suite for a few days, and they