Like Leo Buscaglia is often famously quoted, “No one gets out of this world alive, so the time to live, learn, care, share, celebrate, and love is now.”
But I’m for the sake of this piece only interested in the first part of the quote, “no one gets out of this world alive….”
Meaning, we will all die, ultimately, whether now or later; so maybe because I always have this at the back of my mind, I often do not like situations where a judgement of death is passed on any offender, no matter how evil…I sometimes like to think that keeping them, the offenders, alive, maybe not in comfort, is more punishment for them than to sentence them to death. Death is just a moment and they are gone, they will have no idea what is happening on this side of the divide. But if they are allowed to live, of course in prison, they will live to relive, hopefully in regret, each passing day, the evil they did and be haunted by their acts.
That for me is a lifelong torture.
When I read the story of the Akwa Ibom 52 year old Emah Nkereuem, sentenced to death by hanging, leaving his 5 children behind because he beheaded his pregnant wife; my first thought was, his children would now be distributed to all their relatives;
-they will not grow up together;
-they will be haunted by the memory of a father who violently took their mother’s life and is also dead through another violent means.
The children suffer the double tragedy; they would be reminded of the horrible conditions under which their parents died…how does anyone crawl from that kind of pit?
I’m not questioning the judge’s decisions to hang Emah Nkereuem, he’s a scum for murdering his pregnant wife!
But does he does he deserve to die? I think he should have been left to rot in jail!
Prison will prolong his anguish, which he deserves; he would be tortured with images of his wife naked with another man;
He would wake up in cold sweat hearing babies crying, see his wife’s bloodied remains…
His pain will also stem from hearing but never seeing his children grow to become, hopefully, great citizens.
He would hear but never experience freedom again; he would live in depression and regret; that should be like eternal.
He’ll wish he could pull back the hands of the clock and undo what he did on February, 12th of 2018, when he woke his sleeping pregnant wife, demanding to know the father of the pregnancy she was carrying.
But to be fair, let’s consider Emah Nkereuem’s predicament. He was married and I’m sure, like most marriages, had its issues but they were getting by…there was no report of domestic violence prior to this, however, upon hearing his wife was sleeping around with a particular man, Emah Nkereuem, laid a trap, like any man in his shoes would. He found his wife with a pregnancy he didn’t put there, this can make any man go mad!
Mrs Emah Nkereuem made the mistake; if her husband had been careful not to sleep with her over a period of time and she suddenly announces pregnancy, yes, he has a right to query the pregnancy. Nothing emasculates a man than to be taken for a fool by his wife/partner in the eyes of the entire town/village or wherever it is Emah Nkereuem crawled out from.
This couple’s story broke me on many levels; first off; there must have been problems that made Mrs Emah Nkereuem go hunting for a lover after 5 children!
Had Emah Nkereuem been threatening to send her packing, hence her plan B with the said Michael Udoh?
Whatever the reason, she still doesn’t deserve to be butchered like an animal by a man she gave five children to!
He is reported to have written a statement thus: “On 12/2/2018 at about 4:30 am, I call my wife to ask her about how she came about the pregnancy and who is responsible for it. She refused to answer me and I become annoyed. “I took the big matchet and cut her right hand. She moved to run away, I cut her neck again and she fall down. I was informed by people around our house that one Michael Udoh always sleep with her anytime I left the house for work.”
For a few moments after he cut her, I think he must have felt justified, telling himself, ‘finally I have been able to deal with a situation that had emasculated me. How will it be said that me, a man who had fathered five strong children, suddenly has another man riding my wife while I labor at work to being food to her!’
There will never be a grave enough excuse for any man to take the life of his wife or vice versa!
No matter how many times he would wish to pull back the hand of time, Emah Nkereuem’s fate has been sealed.
Waiting for death in itself is torture; then the kind of gruesome death he is sure will come to him will make even the toughest of heart break into pieces.
But my sympathy goes to the five children left behind; only God can take away their pain.