Less than one month after Lekan Shonde reportedly killed his wife in Egbeda area of Lagos State, another man, Friday, allegedly murdered his wife at their no 8 Araromi area of the state.
According to the sister in-in-law who simply identified herself as Vero, the suspect, James Kafaru Esougie, slashed his wife, Roseline’s throat while she was asleep.
Unlike Lekan who ran away after he reportedly committed the crime, Vero said James didn’t run away but started manifesting strange characters when they became aware of the incident.
Vero said: “We were sleeping when my sister’s husband came out to wake the first son to go and urinate. This was about 4am. When the boy went in to wake the mother, he saw that she was not responding. He shook her vigorously and got no response and quickly ran to call me. When I got there, I also shook her with the aim of waking her but got no response. Touching her legs, I observed that it was very cold. I shuddered and quickly removed that cloth on her face.
‘It was then that I saw that the husband had used a knife to slash her neck. He cut the vein that holds the neck and the head. She was in a pool of her own blood. Goose pimples overwhelmed me and the children. They were traumatized as they saw the lifeless body of the mother drenched with blood.
“When we were doing all these, the husband sat on the floor vomiting black things and defecating right there. Thereafter, I raised the alarm and neighbours came to apprehend him. The police was later invited to whisk him away.”
Asked if the couple used to quarrel before the murder, Vero said: “They used to quarrel a lot. The husband was always beating her. We severally told her to leave the house for him but she declined, preferring to endure for the sake of her children. It was her resolve to endure that eventually caused her, her life. She gave birth to five children for him. They are both from Auchi, in Edo State. My sister was a petty trader but the husband doesn’t have any known job. As far as I know, he is jobless. It was my sister that was responsible for providing for the needs of the family. ”
The rest of deceased’s siblings were in pensive mood obviously trying to fathom the fate that befell their sister as Vero tearfully relived the account of how the sister was gruesomely murdered in the building that houses several shops where clothing and other house hold items are sold.
Seething anger glaringly stood on the face Philip, the deceased’s younger brother when The Nation sought his comment on the incident. He paced up and down in the apartment looking downcast.
“My late sister’s husband married her when she was in the secondary school. He was initially working as a trailer driver before he lost his job. He has been jobless since then. We have been asking her to park out all along but she refused. It is unfortunate that she ended up being sacrificed by the man she gave her all.”
Shop owners in the building sat sorrowfully in groups at the entrance of the house bemoaning the fate that befell the deceased. Some of them who spoke with our correspondent said they saw the deceased when she returned from her business place around 8pm on Thursday. They said the husband became unusually aggressive earlier in the week as he quarreled with everybody that stood on his way.
“The man was very aggressive all through Wednesday and good part of Thursday. He was smoking and feverishly puffing the smoke of the cigarette into the air. He kept throwing away every chair and table that he saw on the way and also quarrelling with everybody that saw. We never knew that he was preparing the ground for the dastardly act he wanted to carry out.
“The wife sells frozen food at Ijora. We were outside when she returned from her business place Thursday. She was looking very tired and sick. When we asked her what the matter was, she said she wasn’t feeling healthy. When we told her to take some days off and rest, she said it would not be possible immediately because she needed to hustle to get money to pay her children’s school fees. She said she would take time to rest after paying the school fees. She had earlier paid the rent. Unfortunately, the rest will end up becoming an eternal one,” one of the traders said.
Another trader said: “The deceased was a gentle person. She was always going out early and coming back late in the night. We are all aware that she was the breadwinner of the family because the husband was always idle. I have serious concern about the future of the children. Before they were taking away by the deceased’s family, they were seriously hungry. They had to go and borrow matches to lit the stove to make something for them to eat.”
