She’s widely known as Nwanyi Ambulance or Ambulance Woman. What she does for a living has taken over her real name. If you are in Umuahia, the Abia State capital, particularly the new Industrial Market area and you say you are looking for Mrs Chinwendu Nnadi, it would be quite difficult to get her. But when once you mention ‘Nwanyi Ambulance’ (the ambulance woman), any other person around knows her.
Saturday Sun got wind of the exploits of this woman in the scary corpse conveying business in Umuahia and set out to track her, to find out how a woman has been able to become a trailblazer in a business where most men would rather die than get involved in.
So, the reporter, on the appointed day, set to meet the ever smiling and jovial Nwanyi Ambulance, who many of her fellow womenfolk and men alike, fear to come closer to.
When the writer got to the new Industrial Market, Umuahia as directed, despite her office being at the last row of the expansive market, one was able to locate her with ease through inquiry made at the first gate. That was how popular the woman is in the area and beyond.
Settling down for business, the woman gave her name as Mrs Chinwendu Nnadi and the husband’s name as Okechukwu Nnadi from Umuapu, Isuochi in Umunneochi Local Government Area of Abia State. She also gave the name of their company as Sekuse. While the husband is into full time casket making, Chinwendu is doing it big in the corpse conveying business.
Marriage and the urge
Chinwendu told this reporter that when her husband married her, she was working at the Port Harcourt office of the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission. On the insistence of the husband and in order not to allow the marriage crash, she resigned from her job and came down to Umuahia to live with her husband.
“So, when I came down to Umuahia, since my husband is a casket maker and has hearses, I told him I would like to be driving one of the vehicles. He refused. My husband said there was no way his wife would be an ambulance driver, moreover, when we had enough drivers.”
By then, according to her, the family had about four hearses (the people here know them more as ambulances) with different drivers handling them. She said as an obedient woman, she had to obey her husband.
Nwanyi Ambulance told Saturday Sun that the opportunity of what she had been looking for over the years presented itself in 2008. Hear her, “My journey to driving a hearse started in 2008. On a particular weekend of that year, all our four vehicles were fully booked to convey corpses to various places.
“But something spectacular happened, on the night to the day they were to carry the corpses to their various places. One of the drivers called to inform my husband that the mother died that day and he would not be available for the job.”
Would Sekuse Ambulance Services disappoint the people and cause postponement of already scheduled burials? Nwanyi Ambulance provided the answer. “Since the owners of the corpse were insisting on our keeping to the terms of the agreement, I asked my husband to allow me to drop the corpse and he obliged me. So, I carried the corpse and dropped it in Imo State and came back without any problem. And since then, I have been on the job.”
Competing with men
Hearse driving, especially in this clime, is strictly men’s business. And even at that, due to its scary nature, not all men would attempt to venture into it. But this is a business Chinwendu entered into and within a short period, she started competing favourably with men who had been in the business for years, and she is presently surpassing them.
“Within a short time, people who needed our services started coming to me. Even when our drivers were assigned to them, they will reject them and said they needed me.
“Today, I have become so popular on the job that my male colleagues envy me, saying I take their jobs from them, to the extent they wanted to kill me, but God did not allow them.”
Nwanyi Ambulance informed that she started driving hearses with Volvo, but presently, she drives a Hummer SUV. “It does not mean I don’t drive any other vehicle, it depends on the one people want,” she said,
The lady boasted that no man can do the type of show she performs when she’s carrying a corpse. “At times, my vehicle will be in motion, I would jump down from it in a commando style and be directing its movement without touching the steering. This outstanding show I perform attracts more customers to me.”
Chinwendu who said she at present has about five SUVs in her fleet, was not forthcoming on whether the shows she perform with the ambulance while conveying corpses are natural or is laced with some spiritual power. When asked, she said: “It’s not everything that is discussed in public.” 
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