Nurse ‘kills’ husband

An auxiliary nurse, Mrs. Folashade Idoko, has allegedly stabbed her husband Lawrence, to death.

The incident occurred around 11pm on Sunday at their 20, Kosoko Street, Ayetoro Lagos home in Oto-Awori Local Council Development Area (LCDA), Lagos.

It was gathered that the deceased suffered years of domestic violence from his wife but kept quiet.

The couple have two children – a three-year-old boy and a one-year-old girl.

The woman was said to have pounced on the late Lawrence after accusing him of infidelity.

Sources said the late Lawrence, a pipeline engineer with Greater Inspection and Industrial Services at Sango-Otta in Ogun State, was away on official assignment in Ikorodu for a week.

She said: “He returned and his wife accused him of having extramarital affair. She stabbed him in the leg with a sharp knife. When his three-year-old son’s cries alerted neighbours, he had bled heavily. He died about an hour after he was rushed to the nearby New Ayetoro Medical Centre.”

But Mrs. Idoko, a native of Kwara State, who is in police net, claimed that the knife fell on her husband by accident.

She said she picked the knife to swear by it when she accused her husband of infidelity but in his effort to take it from her, it fell on his leg and left a deep cut.

A neighbour, Mrs. Blessing Olokpobri, claimed that the woman was well known for her violent nature in the neighbourhood. “There was hardly a day they didn’t have a fight whenever he came around. Even on January 1, they fought. There was a time she went to drag him and stripped him naked from a beer parlour around here and beat up an elderly neighbour. There was even a time she sliced his ear lobes with a broken bottle and it had to be stitched,” she recounted.

Their landlord, Chief Gani Akanni, who rushed the late Lawrence to hospital, said he issued the family quit notice following their incessant fights. But he changed his mind following other tenants’ intervention.

Akanni, the Balogun of Ayetoro said: “There was a time I also took the woman to the police station because she vandalised my property after I locked up the tenants’ rooms for defaulting in payment of Lagos Waste Management Agency (LAWMA) bills. She went ahead to break the door. It is unfortunate because the husband is such a quiet and peaceful man.”

Idoko’s aunt and rights activist Betty Abbah confirmed his death, describing it as unfortunate.

According to her, it was unfortunate that spousal abuse is still prevalent and that it continues to take a toll on partners, either male or female.

She said: “My nephew, like many men and women who die daily in violent relationships, would have been alive had they fled such deadly arrangements in the name of marriage.

“We, the family, will ensure that justice is done, this is another young and promising life deliberately cut short and this wickedness will not go reprimanded.

“We would have intervened one way or the other but he hid the entire violent scenario from us. Persons suffering domestic violence should always call out for help. It’s indeed a big tragedy for us.”