By Haruna Abdullahi Haruspice
Peace is where the heart lies, a treasure more valuable than riches, more sacred than fame, with peace of mind you can conquer the world.
Across the world, you’ll find wealthy men and glittering celebrities forfeiting fortunes, signing away empires, all for one thing — a chance to breathe freely again. Because at the end of the day, wealth, beauty, and status mean nothing if the soul is in chains. Peace of mind is life’s greatest fortress. And sometimes, love alone isn’t enough to build it.
The heartbreaking saga of Innocent “Tuface” Idibia and his estranged wife Annie Macaulay is a living testament to this brutal truth. Annie was the woman who stayed — through thick and thin, through the days of empty pockets and broken dreams. She drank garri with him in dingy rooms, slept under leaking roofs, and watched him stumble towards stardom. She bore his children, endured the noise of his fame, and forgave him for sins that would have broken other women.
But she forgot the most important gift a woman can give a man – peace.
There’s only so much a man can endure before he starts to fade. Tuface didn’t lose himself in the studio or on stage — he lost himself at home, the moment he said “I do” to a woman who loved him but couldn’t set him free.
From a supportive wife, Annie slowly became a commanding mother- acting like Patience Ozokwu in movies, a keeper, a warden. The loving arms that once soothed him now smothered him. The soft words that once built him up became sharp reminders of his failures.
“I was with him when he was nobody! I ate garri with him! I slept in one room with his friends breathing down my neck! No one deserves him but me!”
Annie’s cries filled the house, but they also hollowed Tuface’s heart. Because nothing cripples a man faster than being chained to the memories of his own inadequacy.
And then, as life would have it, a new name emerged – Natasha. In her arms, Tuface didn’t just find love — he found peace.
The day Annie shut Tuface’s brothers out of their home, she unknowingly slammed the door on her marriage. In the African man’s heart, family is non-negotiable. A man may quarrel with his siblings behind closed doors, but to banish them from his home? That is treason of the alekwu.
She may have won battles within the house — silencing critics, enforcing boundaries — but she lost the soul of the man she fought so hard to keep.
In Idoma tradition, the wife of the first son becomes the second matriarch, stepping into the sacred shoes of the family’s mother. Annie had the chance to become the Queen of the Idibia dynasty. She had the beauty, the loyalty, the history — but she failed to master the ancient art of peacekeeping.
In giving Tuface everything but peace, she gave him every reason to leave. And now, the world watches.
Will Tuface find lasting peace with Natasha? Or will he, like the restless river, flow onward to Enenu, or Chidera, or perhaps another woman who offers him the freedom his soul craves?
Only time will tell.
But one truth is written in stone- Without peace, love will eventually crumble. Without peace, even kings will abandon their thrones- like Tuface did.
Undeniably musing