Does anybody care about this terrible trend?
People committing murder with ease. Many threatening to commit suicide and some actually committing suicide or attempting to end it all when they can no longer bend it.
There are also many cases of husbands killing their wives and wives killing their husbands in a macabre reversal of deep and psychic spousal affection. The Sophocles era all over again?
Why do people kill their loved ones? The reasons are as many as the stars in the sky, but how many of them are rational? Psychologists, psychoanalysts and psychiatrists really have their jobs cut out for them. But does anybody care?
The other day in Ibadan, a lawyer reportedly pounced on her sleeping husband and knifed him to death. A court is sitting over the matter, even as the man’s family is crying for justice.
In Benue State, a 17-year-old boy killed his mother for, according to him, being the architect of his libidinal problem “in the last few years”. It doesn’t get more tragic. He shot his mother after accusing her of witchcraft, the police said.
I wonder what the Lagos dockworker whose wife’s body was found in their home after a row will be telling the police now. According to his friends, Mr Lekan Shonde had accused his wife of infidelity before the light suddenly went out on her life . “He has never been violent. I have known him for the past 33 years and I can tell you he is a gentleman,” Mr Sunday Nwobi said of the suspect who is now in police custody.
After learning of his wife’s death, Shonde reportedly decided to commit suicide, but his friends prevailed on him to surrender to the police so that justice could take its course. The authorities will have to rely on scientific clues to determine the cause of Ronke Shonde’s death , which her husband insists he did not cause.
Why did Shonde contemplate suicide if he was damn sure he didn’t do it? Is it true he called the man with whom his wife had an affair? Will the police question the suspected philanderer? Shonde said he called his mother-in-law to say that he had decided not to kill himself and the woman said she had forgiven him.
At what point do people decide to commit suicide? When do they try to give up? And why? Cowardice? Isn’t thinking about suicide an element of cowardice? Should a man be hopeless? Is suicide a symbol of bravery? How will the victim know what the world thinks about him? Is the “final solution” a sign of honour and ultimate defence of integrity? This is neither here nor there.
Songster Tiwa Savage should be gathering the pieces of her shattered marriage now. First we learnt of her husband Tunji “Tee Billz” Balogun’s attempted suicide. He chose a fantastic site – the top of the bridge that links Lekki and Ikoyi, where the rich and powerful move in exotic cars; not on Eko Bridge with all those funny passenger vans. Set to jump into the water, he decided to make some last calls –in place of a suicide note? – and, as if it was all planned, his pals stormed the place to dissuade him from jumping. He obliged them.
In the manner of the kiss-and-tell stories that usually swirl around celebrities, the budding entertainment impresario accused his wife of infidelity, ingratitude and betrayal. Besides, he said her mother was behind his fate – an allusion to some unstated and unproven psychic forces Tee Billz believes the woman possesses.
Tiwa picked up the gauntlet. She painted a mesmerising picture of her former manager and estranged husband’s life. A rock star’s champagne life – of drug, wine and women. She said Tee Billz had put her in debt and she needed to salvage her career.
Trust Nigerians, these love-turn- sour stories- some of them are major calamities, no doubt – have revved into action the remarkable fecundity of the Nigerian mind. It is all in an attempt to explain that some of the situations that propel couples to end it all are not as harmful as they seem if we are patient. Consider this sent to me by a friend:
“One day oga decided to give his wife a surprise package. He moulded a big heart cake, with the assistance of the house help. The project took almost a whole day. Madam returned from work to meet the house help snoring. She was fast asleep.
“Madam: ‘Silly girl, will you get up now! What have you been doing since morning?
“House help: ‘Welcome ma. A beg; no vex. Me and Oga dey make love since morning. Na now we finish. Na im I sey make I lie down small …”
There is also this that tries to define love, that seemingly phantasmagoric and gripping feeling to which men and women ascribe some of their behaviours, and death – the end of all. It says: “What is love? Love is when your husband catches you in bed with another man and says, ‘baby, dress up; let’s go home’. What is death? Death is when you follow him.”
In other words, when a couple begin to hurl at each other allegations of infidelity, it is time to watch it. They need not wait for the “final solution” for the resolution of their differences. Once suspicion elbows trust out of a relationship, what is left?
Tee Billz was lucky to have got people to dissuade him from taking that fatally final plunge into the dark, murky river to cool off in the hereafter. So was Senator Kashamu Buruji. Remember the other day how drug law enforcement agents laid a siege to his home in a controversial bid to seize and ferry him to the United States where they insist he is wanted for drug offences. The distinguished senator said he had no case to answer in America. When it was obvious the operatives were set to storm the house and ferret him out, Kashamu threatened to commit suicide rather than being bound and bundled onto a flight to uncertainty.
Then th e courts supervened. Now the senator is sitting pretty in the National Assembly, making laws for good governance and well being of the country. He even finds time, despite the mental exertion that lawmaking demands, to occasionally issue press statements commending the Muhammadu Buhari administration’s anti-corruption battle, urging Nigerians to back it. Ah! If only truth could talk.
There are people who commit suicide or threaten to wave the final farewell to the world for the hardship they face. An Abia State civil servant has just hung himself because he had not been paid for four months. De Nwakwo had a family of four. He couldn’t feed them, according to reports on the incident. He left a suicide note for his family, which said he couldn’t foot his children’s education bill and could not afford to buy a dress for his wife to wear on Mother’s Day. “I have no other place to go ; no hope, nothing to give to my children to eat and no salary for the past four months. I am sorry I have to do this,” Nwakwo wrote. Poor fellow.
Last Thursday in Lekki, a Cameroonian, Frederick Gino, climbed an electric pole and threatened to kill himself. A report said it was all to avoid a mob that pursued him after he was suspected to have burgled an apartment. Another quoted him as telling the crowd that had gathered to rescue him: “Give me N5million or I jump!” He was brought down and taken to the hospital.
Was it all a stunt? As many asked, if Gino wanted to end it all, he needed not have taken the trouble of looking for a ladder to climb the pole and causing a nuisance. Why didn’t he just take a stroll to a humming transformer and just give the hot machine a bear hug?
Is the law that bars a man from taking his own life still alive?
Cameron’s cameo
British Prime Minister David Cameron has been under attack since the news broke of his description of Nigeria as “fantastically corrupt” during a discussion with the Queen and the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Right Rev. Justin Welby.
Mr Cameron has not said anything new. What he has failed to say is that the Muhammadu Buhari administration is waging a war against corruption. He is forging ahead despite criticisms in some quarters of the style of fighting the war and what to his opponents is the utter neglect of other areas.
Besides the fact that Cameron’s statement is undiplomatic and impolite, it is hypocritical. Most of those who stole Nigeria’s wealth live in Britain, their loot is kept in Britain, their kids school in Britain, their investments – mostly in property and stocks- are in Britain. When Great Britain stops being a haven for looters, the greedy would have lost a great ally. And the time to do that is now. Cameron should lead the way instead of insulting Nigerians, most of who are living honest and clean lives.
NATION
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