By Nkereuwem Akpan
We agree that murder is not the solution. Going to the police is not the solution. Filling a lawsuit is not also a solution.
I have received a good number of DMs since afternoon about possible solutions.
It is suggested that men should draw up formal agreements with ladies they want to marry after seeing them through school
Having said that the underlying problem is how to discourage our ladies from this sort of scam that wrecks a man emotionally, financially, and psychologically.
In 2012 I was defence Counsel in COP v Mutiu Akindele and Simon Lough (now SAN) and one Malik Taiwo were prosecuting before my Lord Baba Yusuf J FCT/High Court 07 (now CJ FCT). The accused was charged with Culpable homicide punishable with death over the gruesome murder of his lover (wife) from Enugu State by smashing her head with a pestle. His official defence was an alibi that he came back from work and met her in a pool of blood.
In actual fact, he had picked up the girl at Zone 4 red light district Abuja as a call girl initially but later she moved in with him. Somehow he took her off the street, opened a business for her, and “cleaned her up” with an understanding that she will marry him. When it was time to go for the marriage, the lady suddenly realized that Mutiu Akindele was a mere Vulcanizer and one Emeka who was working with one of the MDAs as a computer analyst was her preference for a life partner or hubby.
Whenever Mutiu leaves for work, Emeka will sneak in and “analyze” the lady on Mutiu’s bed. They were staying along Airport Road at a place called Jika or Cheeka whatever.
Word got to Mutiu Akindele that every day Emeka turned his bed into a computer platform where his “wife” was the “computer” subject of said analysis. Mutiu laid ambush and the rest is history
So 99 out of 100 men will let it go but they’ll always be that 1 man out of 100, who will take matters into his own hand.
In those days there used to be rampant cases of acid baths and all that but these days it seems that jilted men are mostly God-fearing or have devised sinister methods of “payback” or something
Apparently from the number of messages I have received in my DM, men are often too ashamed and embarrassed to go public about their ordeal when. My worry is that by keeping quiet and refusing to speak up, disgruntled men and women are taking matters into their own hands and I shudder to think what Cavelier or machiavellian methods those are.
Under the EFCC Act, there’s provision for prosecution of cases of this genre where Nigerians are collecting money from lovestruck foreign ladies with promises of marriage. I think the law could be applied to prosecute anyone who leads another on and later backs out from marriage in the circumstances that led to the Chinese killing his lover in Kano State
Nkereuwem U Akpan, Esq. writes from Abuja
