Skeeter Davis was a great US country singer. In a track, What Does It Take, she said in deep reasoning “when you are running from yourself, there is no place left to hide.”
When the home turns to dreaded and haunted abode, there is no place left to hide. It is a sign of anarchy because those pursued outside do run home to hide away from trouble. But that seems to have been lost with the orgy of violence, stalking the homes of Nigerians. The homes have become killing fields. Love that gave rise to marriages has taken flight, vacating the homes for cudgels, daggers, knives, hatchets, acid, petrol, fire, hammer, axe, guns, etc. Almost every item in the homes has been turned to object for murder.
We are prone to news of deaths in the homes. They come from husbands to wives and from wives to husbands. Even cherished children are not spared by parents gone amok. In the past one year, we have reaped blood and carnage in the homes in tens, at least the ones reported in the media in various homes. And the trend seems to be on downhill roll that nothing comes in its way right now.
In less than two weeks two ugly tales of domestic violence at their worst levels jolted us.
One was in Abuja and the other in Lagos. They came at the worst magnitude and forms. It was just few days after the Abuja incident where a jealous wife doused her husband with petrol while he was asleep and burnt him dead that a worse case unfolded in Lagos.
The victim husband in Abuja, a journalist, politician and adviser to a senator, died in the hands of his second wife in Gwarimpa, a highbrow Abuja area.
The offence the man committed was an allegation that he gave more time and attention to the first wife. He had planned to travel to Kaduna to see the first wife when the second wife decided to end the trip and get better attention by roasting him in petrol fire at night. The late victim is Mohammed Ibrahim Matazu. He became yet another victim of the scourge of blood that has gone viral in the homes. The husband killer, who is now in cell awaiting trial, is simply called mummy by the family. But her act was a world away from the way of mummies.
If you, however, feel appalled by this dastardly act, you then don’t need to read the shocking tale of a worse theatre in Lagos, just few days after. The Gwarimpa incident looks like mere rehearsal to what unfolded in Lagos when a jilted lover went totally berserk and left eight persons dead in his wake. His target originally was a former lover. He killed the woman he claimed to have loved, killed a relation of hers with the eight-month old foetus she carried. His anger is that the lady’s family was opposed to his relationship with the lady he claimed to have loved and later killed.
A man, just 27 years old, reportedly walked into the girlfriend’s home in Igando, Lagos suburb, and shot dead seven persons. The next victim, the ex-lover’s sister and her three children were killed too. He was not done yet as he later picked the victim’s phone and called her husband to know his location and stalk him for further massacre.
The recent incidents made Abuja Metro to embark on a recall of some of the recent bloodsheds, rocking Nigerian homes and families that have put husbands and wives in stiff contest over who out-kills the other.
Killer husbands
January 3, 2013
A middle-aged man, Sebastine Ude, allegedly killed his wife, Abigail, after a quarrel in the night.
That was right in the home of the couple in Ikata Community, Ahaoda East Local Government Area of Rivers State. The two had a quarrel late in the night and at about 4.00am, the husband reportedly grabbed an object and slew the wife. He turned the machete the home had had for other uses on the wife and dealt her blows until she died. He was later arrested
November 17, 2012
Musa Yusuf allegedly killed his wife for refusing him sex. That was in Ilorin, Kwara State.
He was immediately arrested and remanded in prison custody.
Yusuf is facing one-count charge of culpable homicide, punishable under Section 221 of the Penal Code.
The brother of the deceased, Sanni Suleiman, told the court that the woman took food to her husband in the farm but did not return home.
Her corpse was found in the husband’s farm with mark of violence on her face. The body, he said, was concealed under weeds.
October 7, 2012
A 46-year-old unemployed man, resident in Agbado in Ogun State, was arrested for allegedly killing his wife by throwing her into a pit latrine after a misunderstanding.
This is just the latest case in the chronic saga of Nigerians, killing their wives at home and abroad.
September 6, 2012
Another case of wife-killing rocked Enugu State. Graphic pictures of the wife’s lifeless body, showing deep cuts with blood oozing out, had circulated on the Internet.
Sunday Eze was shown to the world by the police in Nsukka for allegedly butchering his wife with a machete. If that was not horrible enough, then Eze drove his carnage instincts home when he decided to dismember his wife’s body in the full watch of his eleven-year-old son, Onyebuchi. The boy, a primary five pupil, also sustained deep machete cut in his hand while trying to prevent his father from taking his mother’s life.
Eze was said to have had some battle with mental ill health prior to the incident.
“My father has a mental problem and exhibits it at times. He regrets certain actions he takes, when it is too late,” his son said.
July 24, 2012
It was another theatre in Enugu State when a man, Mathias Nweze, former worker with the Enugu Independent Electoral Commission (ENSIEC), admitted shooting his wife.
The couple hailed from Umuida, Enugu Ezike in Igboeze North Local Government Area. The suspect reportedly murdered the deceased said to be one of his two wives.
The late wife was a native of Imufu as her husband. Her offence was preparing the kind of soup her husband did not want for him.
However, perhaps, out of sheer bravado, the Nweze had rushed to the police station in the community to report himself for killing his wife.
June 22, 2012
The orgy crossed international borders when a Nigerian husband, 26-year-old Nathaniel Udama Edu, killed his girlfriend in Ghana. The victim was Matilda Asante, 19, a senior high school graduate at South Afankor. The body of the deceased was found in the neighbourhood, wrapped in bedsheet and her legs tied, while her head was covered in a black polythene bag.
January 24, 2012
Peter Odion, a middle aged man, killed his wife, Ifeoma, in Lagos for eating his food.
The incident occurred at their residence at 2, Olushola Close, Abule Taylor, Abule Egba, Lagos State.
Chinweike Ohalele, a sister of the deceased, who was living with the couple but was not at home when the tragedy occurred, said: “I was at my village meeting on Sunday afternoon when one of our neighbours called me on phone to meet them at a hospital at Abule Egba over my sister’s condition. When I got there, I met my sister in an unconscious state with blood dripping from her head and face. In fact, she could neither talk nor recognise me.”
June 24, 2011
It made so much news when Arowolo Akolade, a jobless man, living in Isolo, Lagos, literally butchered his banker wife, Titilayo.
Akolade, who claimed to be a born again Christian, and Titilayo had been married for two years and had a daughter. No one knows exactly what transpired the day he killed his wife.
When Titi didn’t show up at work or contact anyone for days, the police were called in and when they got to the couple’s home, they found Titi’s dismembered body and a distraught Kolade was on the run and later arrested.
February 1, 2013
Disagreement between a husband and his wife over some missing eggs caused the death of the woman.
Ama Jejeba, 26, who was allegedly beaten unconscious by her husband, Kojo Tawiah, as the disagreement turned fatal, was pronounced dead on arrival at the Tarkwa Government Hospital. That was in Ghana. Perhaps, the bug had jumped the borders.
January 18, 2013
Jane Nyawira, a witness before a Nairobi court, Kenya, told the court that her uncle killed his own two sons. She said she thought her uncle, James Mwinga, was actually joking only to discover that he had truly killed his two sons.
Nyawira said Mwinga had the day before threatened to kill the boys, aged five and seven, if his wife, who had left their matrimonial home, did not return. Another witness said Mwinga’s estranged wife had called to request her to check on her two sons. Mwinga himself had earlier called to tell his wife that he had killed their children. When she went to check on the children, Wanjiru said she found the bodies of the two boys drenched and lying in a pool of blood in their home.
March 26, 2012.
A senior pastor of United Evangelical Church, Rev. Sunday Alfa, allegedly murdered his wife, a mother of four, for refusing him sex. The wife, Rose Alfa, was murdered in the Mission House at about 3am in Igojo,Ubali Village near Okene in Kogi State. The woman before her death had confessed to a policeman that took her to the hospital that she did no wrong to her pastor husband and that the man came in the night into the room she was sleeping to demand for sex but she refused because she gave birth to her last baby through cesarean section and the doctor asked her to abstain from sex for some time.
May 23, 2011
Police admitted shock when it got a phone call from Peter Michael Agbala, son of a Deputy Superintendent of Police, that a man had killed his wife. The incident was in Suleja, Niger State.
On interrogation, the wife killer simply said: “You know I have spent so much money on my wife? I have killed her.” The victim was Lydia Ekundayo John.
February 11, 2013
In Ondo State, police reported that a hunter, Ojo Toki, 45, shot dead his wife, Adesewa, over disagreement on his breakfast in Ibule Soro area of the state. The suspect, who is in detention in Igbara-Oke Police Station is a staffer of the Ministry of Agriculture in Igbara-Oke. He allegedly shot his wife on the neck at close range with a dane gun.
The suspect had disagreement with his wife in the morning of the ill-fated day. He angrily left for his hunting expedition only to return to vent his anger by shooting the deceased.
October 23, 2012
In Ikorodu, Lagos, it was a day of horror in the family after a man allegedly killed his wife during a scuffle.
The cause of the fight could not be ascertained but report said the couple had been having incessant quarrels for some time. There was a shout for help from Mr. and Mrs. Molade’s one-room apartment located on 14, Ifesowa Street.
However, no one responded as most of the tenants had left for work.
Out of curiosity, a passerby went to the apartment and found Mrs. Omolere Molade unconscious. Attempts to revive her were fruitless. Police later confirmed that Paul Omolade had hit his wife, who later died, and ran away.
December 17, 2012
Esther Arogundade was stabbed 13 times by Shola Adebiyi at her Salford, Greater Manchester, home.
Adebiyi tried to kill himself by drinking oven cleaner after killing his former partner
He phoned his victim’s new lover to say he would never see her again and then confessed the killing to a friend. Adebiyi was jailed for a minimum of 20-and-a-half years at Manchester Crown Court. Esther Arogundade, 32, was attacked by Adebiyi in her own home after she began a relationship with another man. Adebiyi also drank oven cleaner in an attempt to kill himself.
March 31, 2012
At Kwali Street in Phase 1, Site 2, Kubwa, Abuja, a husband, Mr. Godwin Udonta, 40, allegedly pulled a sword from his car to kill the wife. The marriage of almost 12 years produced two sons of eleven and seven years. Wife of the man, Mrs. Nsini Udonta, 36 narrated her narrow escape from death.
March 3, 2009
Mrs. Evelyn Uche Vanacker, Nigerian woman married to a Belgian met her death in the hands of her husband, Mr. Wim Vanacker. He strangled her and drove her body about 100km away from their residence to dump it in an open field on the border between France and Belgium. Evelyn was 31 years old. Her body was discovered by French authorities and on interrogation, her 35-year-old husband, Wim Vanacker, confessed to strangling her.
April 21, 2012
A farmer, Habila Illiya, killed his estranged wife and buried her remains in a farmland in Kaduna.
The woman honoured an invitation from the man that fateful day but that was a mistake that cost her, her life. She left behind four children.
Martha was from Nungu tribe of Kaduna and Habila from Pataki village, Jema’a Local Government of Kaduna State. They married in 1997 and had four children before the marriage ended in 2010.
7 cases in the US
The latest incident involved one Dubem Okafor, a well-regarded 64-year-old poet and nephew of Christopher Okigbo, the famous poet, who died, fighting for Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War. On August 15, Okafor, who was also an associate professor of English at Kurtz University in Pennsylvania, murdered his 37-year-old Jamaican-American wife and then committed suicide shortly afterwards. US media reported that the incident was the seventh, involving Nigerian couples in the USA in few years.
April 20, 2012
A drycleaner in Ago, Okota, Lagos, Henry Nnamdi, allegedly killed his one-year-old son, Chukwuebuka, in order to spite his wife, whom he accused of having an extra-marital affair.
Reports said Henry also used a hot pressing iron to burn his wife, Mercy, and stabbed her repeatedly in order to force her to confess to the allegation.
A police source said 40-year-old Henry had been suspecting that his wife was having an amorous relationship with his father for a while.
On the day of the incident, he came back home late in the evening and was ironing his customers’ clothes on the floor while his wife and son were on the bed.
August 30, 2012
Rich Oganiru, an actor in Abuja, was accused of poisoning his wife and selling her property. He, however, denied the allegation.
July 8, 2012
The Ekiti State Police Command detained Mr. Nnaefenwa Lucky, in connection with the beheading of his wife, Bose. The torso of Bose, 40, suspected to have been killed for ritual purposes, was discovered in the bush by her husband, who had asked her to bring food to him. It was gathered that the deceased, who had four children, had prepared the food as instructed by her husband and was on the way to the farm to give it to him when she was attacked and decapitated by yet to be identified persons.
September 21, 2012
Adesanmoye Kehinde, expressed his frustration after he was dumped by his wife, Jean Odegba, 29, by setting her ablaze in Ikotun, Lagos.
He was said to have poured some petrol on her and lit a match that set her ablaze.
Although Jean was rescued, she suffered severe burns and was hospitalised.
The victim claimed that Kehinde enjoyed every benefit from her as his wife and yet he did not pay a dime to her family as dowry after repeated promises to do so.
She had, therefore, decided to quit the four-year relationship for another man, who was ready to marry her.
Killer wives
August 20, 2012
The tragic train anchored at Ago-Okota area of Lagos, when a man, identified as Ifeanyi Anaekwe, slumped and died during a scuffle with his wife in their apartment. The deceased and his wife had an argument over money to buy pampers and baby food for their child, which degenerated into a fight.
During the fight, the widow, Chikodili Anaekwe, allegedly grabbed a pestle and hit her husband on the head and he slumped. That was not enough still as the wife allegedly stabbed him several times.
July 25, 2012
This was a unique case where five of six wives of a man teamed up and killed him after raping him. The incident occurred in Ogbadibo LGA of Benue State. The five killers committed the act because their husband paid so much attention to the sixth wife. The late Uroko Onoja was having sex with his youngest wife, when the five other wives came in and attacked him with knives and sticks demanding that he had sex with all of them at once. Onoja, a wealthy businessman was overpowered by the women, who ordered the sex march, beginning with the youngest wife and continued in that order to the top. By the time the fifth wife got to his bed, he had stopped breathing. The women began laughing at what they had done but once he was unable to be resuscitated, the women realised the gravity of their gang rape and murder and ran into the forest.
February 16, 2013
A transporter, Wahab Adekola, pleaded with a court in Agege, Lagos, to dissolve his 21-year-old marriage over fetish acts and nagging habit of his estranged wife. He accused his first wife of killing another wife of his.
“I married another wife outside to look for love when I was frustrated by the woman I had married; I needed a woman that would pamper me. But the woman died suddenly with our five-month-old baby.
“I am so sure my first wife was responsible for their deaths because she always threatened to kill any woman associated with me.”
September 23, 2011
Mrs. Ngozi Ademoye showed some remorse before the police for killing her husband but insisted the man was a terrible cultist, reason he was killed.
She said the fight between them that eventually led to his death arose from her insistence that he should renounce cultism. Ngozi revealed to family members and close friends of her late husband that when she recently discovered that her husband was a cultist, she made frantic efforts to make him renounce it without success. She said she approached her pastor, who prayed over a bottle of water with an instruction to always sprinkle some quantity all over the house, especially before bedtime.
The quarrel that led to the death arose from Ngozi’s entry into the secret and cult coven of her husband in his absence.
February 4, 2013
Another wife and mother of four children killed her husband in Ikorodu, Lagos.
Police alleged she killed her husband during a brawl over food. Mrs. Folake Adekoya-Ojo, was arrested following reports by her late husband’s relative. The widow was said to have told policemen that her 37-year-old husband committed suicide by hanging himself on the ceiling fan. On further interrogation, the widow reportedly admitted to have hit her husband with a stone during a scuffle.
Her husband came home at about 11p.m. that fateful night and demanded for food. The food was served but the man complained it was not properly served and trouble ensued that led to death.
June 16, 2012
In Osi-Ekiti, Ido-Osi Local Government Area of Ekiti State, a teacher decided to teach her husband murder. She hacked her husband dead. The suspect, Mrs. Rafatu Agboola, killed her husband, Akeem Agboola, who was asleep, with a machete and reported herself to the police in Osi-Ekiti immediately.
Feb 12, 2013
Hadiza Afegbua Abutu was discharged and acquitted of all charges of killing her husband, Ibrahim Abutu. In December 2011, Hadiza was accused of killing her husband.
Hadiza allegedly used a double barreled-gun to shoot her husband in cold blood, supposedly over his plans to marry a second wife. Hadiza was found not guilty and is a free woman now.
March 18, 2012
What initially looked like a normal fight between a Nigerian couple over sex, turned bloody when the wife stabbed the husband several times, resulting in the untimely death of a 42-year-old man at Asokore Mampong in Kumasi. Rashida Yetunde, 37, allegedly used a sharp knife to stab Maruuf Akinjobi three times in the chest, sending the stoutly-built man down, before stabbing him again on countless occasions in the abdomen when the deceased allegedly tried raping her.
October 28, 2010
Hafeez Rasheed was allegedly stabbed to death by his wife, Molayo. But the woman in the eye of the storm tried to justify her action. “After stabbing him, I cried out for help but our neighbours did not come to assist in saving his life. I cried for help but nobody came to assist me,” she lamented. The incident occurred at Ile Oloola Oja Igbo area of Ibadan, Oyo State. Problem started when Molayo was eating a loaf of bread and her husband decided to take part of it without her permission. The 18-year-old woman was said to have challenged her husband for eating out of it.
April 25, 2012
Husaina Sani, a housewife of Majifa village in Kankara Local Government Area of Katsina State was arrested for allegedly killing her husband, Sani Dan’Mamman, 66, over maize flour.
Husaina was arrested in Majifa village after she killed her husband with a mud block in a scuffle over maize flour he gave her to prepare for a meal for the family.
May 13, 2012
An enraged woman killed her teenage maid, accusing her of sleeping with her husband.
The wife, a schoolteacher, fatally assaulted her teenage maid after catching her being intimate with her husband on their matrimonial bed and hid the body for 12 days. The body was later found hanging from a tree with some body parts missing. Missing from the maid’s body were feet, which were chopped from the ankles, an ear, breast and private parts. The teacher is Itai Mutami, 35, while the victim was Sarudzai Chitevere, 17. They were from Uganda.
November 12, 2011
It was at Agonse Street, Ugbihoko quarters in Egor North East Local Government Council of Edo State. An actor, Daniel Iyamu, was killed by his wife. The lifeless body of Iyamu was discovered by his children, who raised the alarm that morning. Iyamu had gone to bed in good health the previous night and, as such, the children did not suspect anything until about 10am. when they decided to wake him up.
The injuries found on his head, however, suggested he might have been hit with a dangerous weapon.
Grace Iyamu, the late actor’s wife, was found unconscious in another room, after she had allegedly hit her husband with a pestle that killed him.
November 30, 2012
At No. 8, Eze Street, off Okposi Street, Nkaliki, Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, death stalked a home as the wife allegedly killed her husband over allegation of infidelity. Yaune Okoroji, an Assistant Immigration Officer attached to Ebonyi State headquarters of the command, was killed by his wife in a domestic violence. The late Okoroji and his wife, Mrs. Judith Okoroji, had serious marital crisis over infidelity before his sudden demise.
October 10, 2012
A housewife was arrested in Ilorin for allegedly killing her husband. The incident occurred at the 22, Armoured Brigade, Sobi, Ilorin. The woman was alleged to have bathed her husband with acid at about 10.00 pm, few weeks after she had allegedly attempted to terminate his life through food poisoning. Indeed, the man had just returned from the military hospital where he received treatment for food poisoning before the latest incident that led to his death.
The deceased was Sergeant Kayode, a native of Ilofa in Oke-Ero Local Government Area of Kwara State, while the wife hailed from a community in Kaduna State.
June 12, 2012
Bukola Abiwa, 34, was and arraigned in the Ejigbo Magistrate’s Court, Lagos, for allegedly attempting to kill herself and her husband, Sunday Onayiga, with a knife.
She decided to kill herself and her husband after she was told by her husband to pack out of their home at 3, Bassey Street, Orelope area of Egbeda, Lagos, where they had lived for over two years. The angry woman insisted that he must marry her because he promised to marry her two years ago. The Ondo State-born woman expressed her frustration when Sunday broke the news to her that he was no longer interested in the marriage.
CULLED FROM THE SUN
