A crowd besieged Araromi Street in Oshodi area of Lagos State on Friday after a 49-year-old man, Jafaru Sougie, allegedly killed his wife of 26 years.
The suspect was said to have poisoned himself thereafter and was vomiting in the bathroom when one of their children, Richmond, woke up.
Jafaru had reportedly slit the wife’s throat with a knife around 2am but she was discovered dead at 4am by Richmond and his aunt who raised the alarm.
The Edo State indigene was reportedly rescued from a mob by policemen from the Akinpelu division and was rushed to a hospital while the wife’s corpse was deposited in a morgue.
Forty-six-year-old Roselin sold frozen foods in the Ijora area and was said to be the breadwinner of the family as the killer husband was jobless.
Saturday PUNCH gathered that Jafaru had serially assaulted Roseline on the grounds of being unfaithful. Apart from the infidelity allegation, he reportedly beat the mother of five children for collecting gifts from her relatives for the upkeep of the family.
Richmond, 16, told our correspondent that he could not explain what came over his father to have committed the act, saying he started behaving strangely afterwards.
He said, “My three siblings, our aunt and I slept in the living room while dad and mum were inside. Around 4am, dad called me from the bathroom. I went to meet him but he did not say anything. I went outside to urinate and when I came back, I checked the bathroom and saw him lying down, vomiting some black substance and excreting on his body. I think he poisoned himself. I told my aunt to wake mum up to attend to him. But she didn’t wake up.
“I shone a flashlight on her and saw blood on the bed with a wide cut in her neck. I fainted when we discovered she was dead. We later asked dad how it happened, he said somebody entered and did it whereas the compound gate is always locked in the night.
“It was mum that took care of us. She was the one sponsoring my elder brother, Collins, who just gained admission into a university in Abia State. I don’t know our fate now.
“The landlord of our former rented house on Michael Street sent us out because dad always quarrelled with mum. We were also sent away from Banjoko Street for the same reason.”
The aunt, Veronica Imomoh, who confirmed the assault, said she was surprised the woman did not scream during the attack.
She added, “Our family had warned him to stop beating her. He didn’t have any work and she was the one feeding him and paying the rent. Anytime she collected gifts from her relatives, he quarrelled with her. He would accuse her of sleeping with men and beat her up. There was a time he took her to our village in Edo State to swear whether she was cheating on him or not and she did.
“Yesterday (Thursday) he demanded N10,000 from the wife, saying he wanted to travel. She was trying to raise the money from her friends. But I don’t know whether that was the immediate cause of the incident.”
A neighbour, Simeon Nnoron, said he had tried to prevail over Jafaru to stop assaulting the deceased to no avail, adding that he suspected he was on drug and wanted to use the woman for rituals.
Roselin’s elder sister, Mrs. Kate Yakubu, said she had wanted to divorce the husband two years ago but was enjoined to rescind the decision.
She said, “They fought two years ago because he wanted her to stop selling the frozen foods. During the argument, he held her in the neck and removed strands of hair from her head with his teeth. She left the house for a week to live with his brother in Masasa. She wanted to quit the marriage but we begged her not to because of the children. There was a time he said he smelt sperm in her pants after she returned from Seme where she normally bought goods.”
The Deputy spokesperson, Lagos State Police Command, DSP Damasus Ozoani, said the suspect had been transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department for further investigation.
“It was a murder case and the husband was suspected to be under the influence of drug. The case has been transferred to the SCID and investigation has commenced,” he said.
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