Last week, the story of Bilyamin Bello, son of former national chairman of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Alhaji Haliru Bello, went viral. He was allegedly stabbed to death by his wife, Maryam Sanda.
Earlier in October, one Adesuwa Osazuwa allegedly stabbed her boyfriend, Seun, to death in Egbeda, Lagos.
In far away India, a Nigerian couple, Izu and Uzuma, were live-in lovers for over a year but one day they had an argument and Uzuma who is 24 allegedly stabbed her 30-year-old businessman boyfriend to death. All these happened recently and I deliberately left the men who killed their wives out of this. These are sad stories and each time I see such newsbreak, my heart bleeds. Women and men who killed their spouses are evil! Yes, they are evil and they have no excuses for these murders. Often times, these murders are premeditated and well planned out. I won’t go into a sermon to justify the killings because I am of the opinion that there are always other options but the perpetrators of these murders allowed their emotions to becloud their sense of reasoning. They feel if I can’t have him to myself no one should. How crazy can you be? You killed someone you once made a vow to protect and you think you did that for love? I have read some people trying to paint the women as victims, arguing that they were suffering from depression and so were mentally unstable. That’s crap!
Before depression set in what were you doing? When you became depressed what did you do about it? There are always other options and murder isn’t one of them. Besides, spousal murders will continue and it might even go out of hand if we don’t start talking to our children about some basic issues.
One of the reasons for many of these killings is that we have learned over the years and I think we need a new start if we want things to be different.
The men who were murdered must have been enduring one form of abuse or the other in their marriages but they didn’t speak out. Why? It is simply because they are men. In Nigeria, the male child comes with factory fitted amoured tank wired under his penis. He should always be in control of his home, so when he is a victim of domestic violence, he is told to go take charge and be the man of the house. This mentality didn’t start today, it started right from childhood. If a girl beats up a boy, and he starts crying he is a weakling. A boy isn’t allowed to cry but a girl is allowed to be dramatic with her tears.
Interestingly, when a young lady is newly wedded, her aunties will come with their native wisdom. They will tell her to do everything within her means to please her husband because she has been created to do so. They will tell her to always fight for her marriage that no one can unseat her in her home. They will tell her to accept whatever her husband dishes out to her. The Nigerian bride has been taught to always take in whatever her husband does to her. No one cares about how she feels, she is supposed to suck it in like her grandmother, her mother and aunties did.
Moreover, we are here today because men and women have been told to stay in their marriages no matter what happens. They have been told to protect their properties; they have been counselled to stay at all cost. They have been told it is more honourable to die as a married woman than to be single and happy.
In our part of the world, an unmarried person is a failure. A divorcee is a ne’er-do-well. If you are an adult and in a relationship or marriage, you get yourself armed with these facts to avoid a tragic forever after; prepare yourself that sometimes your spouse might hurt you. That your spouse can fall out of love with you and your marriage might not turn out the way you want it. Live with the fact that your spouse can cheat on you, irrespective of the gender. Learn that a marriage thrives and blossoms when two people come together to make it work. Every marriage has its own peculiar challenges so don’t compare your marriage with others. Give your spouse some space and stop hounding him or her. If you are a victim of domestic violence, speak up. It doesn’t matter if you are a man or woman. Lastly, I know marriage is not a walk in the park but you should know when to take a bow out of a bad marriage if your life is threatened or if you feel it might ruin you. Life is precious! There are always other options out of that marriage and murder is not one!
credit link: http://sunnewsonline.com/spousal-murders-will-continue-if/
