Sister, why exactly did you kill your husband? – Peju Akande

Wasn’t it the English playwright, William Congreve who coined the expression so oft used – “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned?”

I wonder if he spoke those words from his own personal experiences as he was known to be quite friendly with popular actresses and the noble women of his day. Anyway, my thoughts today are on the lawyer who stabbed her husband to death for being unfaithful.

I don’t know what this young woman was thinking when she plunged the scissors into his jugular while he slept. Did she stab him twice, not satisfied with the depth of the first wound? The graphic picture of the young man’s fatal wound looked deep and of course, gory.

What was she thinking when she saw him choking on his own blood? Did she pity him as he instinctively struggled to plug the gash in his jugular to stem the rush of blood pouring out of him?

 

Did she panic as she saw him struggling to call for help but gurgled as more blood gushed out, filling his mouth and choking him?

And when he fell unconscious from loss of blood, did she scream, “Yee paaa! Mo da ran, ara adugbo e gba mi, ooo!”

I’m wondering if she attempted to get a towel, a cloth, anything to help him cover the gash as she too, suddenly realising the stab was deeper than she intended and wished she could push back the hands of time like, to inflict a more gentler wound, one that will teach the bagger a lesson without killing him.

Did she assist him to reach the door as he instinctively fought for life with one hand on the gash in his neck and the other groping for the wall, the door, anything to support his weight as adrenaline poured into his brain, screaming at him to get help as fast as possible?

I read to find out whether she ran alongside the vehicle that conveyed her husband’s body to the hospital and later to the mortuary, tearing out her hair or weaves or braids and begging people around her to save her husband by every means, screaming, “Bring him back to life!”

Did she call her friends, her family or even her pastor when she realised her husband was never coming back?

“I have killed him, ooo. The devil is a liar!”

Perhaps she did none of these, maybe she looked him dead in the eye after she plunged the scissors in, twisted it for good measure and quickly pulled back to avoid the fountain of blood shooting out from his neck and said through clenched teeth, “See you in hell!”

Did she realise the moment she decided to murder her husband, hell’s fury rose against her?

I wish I was privy to the conversations going on in her head as I do not even believe she didn’t speak to herself or someone before she committed the act, maybe I have watched too much of CI’s “Snapped: Women who kill.” Maybe that’s my issue here. I’ve come to one realisation, many times, when women snap, it’s mostly from repressed anger; it isn’t spontaneous, its mostly premeditated and please don’t get me wrong, I’m no therapist here, neither am I a psychologist. Just guessing.

Now, this young woman is a lawyer, and being one, I would hope she had thought through her actions before she picked the scissors that day. She should know what the justice system is like in Nigeria. In fact, she should know what hell she prepared for herself and her family members starting with her arrest.

At the police station, where I imagine she would be made to write a statement before being detained, pending police investigations and charge to court.

She should be aware that hell begins at the police station, where they would demand a price for the statement she would write, perhaps they would ask her to pay for both the pen and paper she would use because they’ve run out of stationery and each item will cost close to N5,000. With pen and paper provided, then they would scream out what the statement must contain as there are WRONG and RIGHT ways of writing police statement.

“Write that you killed your husband who did not even offend you, write it or I will break your head with this stick!”

By then of course, the few female officers would have dealt her a few slaps, pulled at her hair, all in righteous anger against this murderess. She had better adhere to their format, or she would never get the statement done.

“For this day and age when better man hard to find, na im you kill your own! Winch!”

Then they would march her into the cell at the end of the long, dark, airless corridor.

In the overcrowded cell, where sweat and grime, dense heat and the stench of dried feaces and urine will hit her with blunt force and immediately crawl up on her like a vermin invasion, she would meet with the cell’s female president with her coterie who will demand respect. Yes, being the latest detainee, she must either pay for a choice position, which may often be two to three rows of bodies behind the bars that hold them in, that way, just for a whiff of air that manages to creep through all of that airlessness.

She might neither be able to lie flat to sleep, nor sit back to feel the wall but will constantly need the naked sweaty bodies of other inmates as support for days. That’s when she would begin to wish for her cozy bed, her air-conditioned apartment, her life the way she knew it a few days before.

And perhaps, at this time, she might still be mad at the husband who decided to die on her after a small stab in the neck. Days of long police investigation will thaw her like iced fish thrown into the furnace; she will shrivel in days and begin to lose her mind. She may be repeatedly raped, passed on from warden to prisoners or be the exclusive sex slave of some oga. More woe will betide her if she ever tells this to anyone.

Forget the food, she won’t get any. Particularly now that the government has further slashed Prison’s budget, so she’ll rely on her family to bring in food at least twice daily. But she may lose her meals to the president and her goons, they often decide whether she’d been a good fellow cellmate or an uncooperative one and so she would often need to buy favours.

She’ll then begin to demand that her visiting relatives bring money to buy a few minutes of air outside the cell for her as money will always determine how sane she would be in time to come. It would also give her minutes of fresh air and determine if she is spared rape for the day.

By now, her savings would have begun to dwindle because her relatives, who have her ATM card and have been withdrawing money from her account to tip a few policemen and of course have begun to pay a lawyer to defend her.

But her case is serious, so the lawyer will keep demanding more money in order to represent her well.

Now, the question should be asked, what motivated this crime of passion?

Infidelity?

It’s as old as the book.

Back track a little, why are we even judging her already? Who says she actually killed him?

Did anyone find her with the murder weapon?

Was there a witness? Perhaps there was an assassin lurking in the corners?

Finally, was her murderous act, maybe, a cry for help?

Questions, questions, questions.

This young woman is the only one with the answers and in situations like this, there are no right or wrong answers as there will be lawyers to argue back and forth on the merits and demerits of each.

I hope she got what she wanted when she killed this young dream because the rest of life will take its pound of flesh from her. That’s for sure.

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