Out of Control: Nigerian Men Killing Their Wives

Gary Frist NewsRescue- Headlines in Nigerian papers today is the story of a 46-year-old unemployed man, who on October 7, at Agbado in Ogun state of Nigeria was arrested for allegedly killing his wife by throwing her into a pit latrine over a domestic misunderstanding. That’s a raw dudu pit! This is just the latest case in the chronic saga of Nigerians killing their wives at home and abroad. The many spontaneous killings, unlike honor killings which are most rampant in Nations around the world, from Asia to South America, can more accurately be considered as crimes of passion, but some disturbingly are executed with scary premeditation and careful planning. Nawhobedat investigated the trends and distribution of these murders and found some thought and discussion provoking trends. Pit Latrine: Traditional non water-flushed toilet Nigeria with a population of 150 million, is Africa’s most populous nation. The country has over 500 ethnic groups, but of these, the three largest and loudest, are the Hausa’s up North, The Yoruba’s in the South west and the Igbo’s in the south east. Cases of wife murder like the one above are almost exclusively relegated to the southern ethnic groups, with the Igbo’s being culprit in 9 in 10 cases. What makes this sad habit so common among the Igbo’s has been a topic of hot debate for many years in Nigerian internet fora. Some have attributed the problem to an Igbo culture that places a humongous bride price on women, and after the men cough out fortunes to marry, they tend to regard their spouses as ‘property’, they have bought, hence having a very low tolerance during domestic conflict. A commentator reacting passionately, said, ‘only people who do not know God will do such’, they have abandoned God, this is why!’ We are unable to test and correlate religion type or the lack of it with crime in general and domestic violence and spousal murder in particular.