by 
A Lagos-based engineer, Mr. Lawrence Ameh Idoko has been reportedly
stabbed to death by his wife, an auxiliary nurse, Mrs. Folashade
Bashira Idoko. The incident which happened at about 11pm, August 20 at
Kosoko Street in Ayetoro area of Lagos (Oto-Awori Local Government
Area), was, according to neighbours, including the landlord of the
house, a culmination of several years of violent spousal abuse by the
suspect, Mrs. Idoko, against her husband.
When
his three-year old son’s cries alerted neighbours, he had bled
heavily. He died about an hour after he was rushed to the nearby New
Ayetoro Medical Centre, Ijanikin.
According to a neighbour,
Mrs. Blessing Olokpobri, the wife’s violence was a well-known fact in
the entire neighbourhood. “There was hardly a day they didn’t have a
fight whenever he came around, even on January 1st this year.
“Or,
was it when he went to drag him and str!pped him n.aked from the beer
palour around here where he was hanging out with friends? She even beat
up an elderly neighbor who tried to intervene. There was even a time
she sliced his ear lobes with a broken bottle and it had to be
stitched. There was another day she str!pped him n.aked in the public,
she narrated.
The
landlord, Chief Gani Akanni, the Balogun of Ayetoro-Ijanikin who took
the bleeding and dying Idoko to the hospital, recounted how he gave the
couple a quit notice early this year due to the incessant fight, but
was begged by the other tenants into reconsidering his stance.
“There
was a time I also took the woman to the police station because she
vandalised my property after I locked up the tenants’ rooms for
defaulting in payment of LAWMA (waste collection) bills.
“She
went ahead to break the door. It is unfortunate because the husband is
such a quiet and peaceful man. Lawrence would never raise his voice
against anybody, he would rather apologise if there was any issue
involving him.
“There
are seven days in a week, this couple would fight three of those seven
days. I am a peaceful person and a community leader. People bring
matter to me in the neighbourhood and I settle them. I don’t like noise
but the deceased’s wife would always cause embarrassment in the
compound.
Folashade who is currently in detention at the
Ijanikin Police Station, is said to be an auxiliary nurse by training
but has been a house wife since. The couple have two children, a
three-year old boy, Isaac and an 11-month old girl, Benedicta.
Idoko hailed from Benue while Folashade hails from Irepodun Local Government Area of Kwara State.
Mercy
Yusuf is Folashade’s younger sister who joined the Idokos on her
holidays. “I came a few days ago to spend part of my holidays with them
so I could help out in some domestic chores,” said the 16 years old
Mercy.
“I was fast asleep when she woke me up and ordered me
to carry her little baby, I carried the baby and saw a pool of blood, I
was afraid and that was when neighbours came and rushed her husband to
the hospital,” she cried.
In
another neighbour’s account, the incidence happened around midnight
Sunday August 20th. Mrs. Jovita Akinrun told National Wire that,
“Yesterday evening around 12mid night I didn’t go to bed because I was
waiting for my husband who went out. He came around midnight and I went
to open the gate for him.
“That was when I heard someone
groaning and calling ‘mummy Esther!’ I called my husband and we dragged
him out. He was soaked in his own blood and looking at the wound and
looking at his wife without uttering any word. I met the children also
stained with blood.”
When asked if they had had violent
encounters before the fateful day, Akinrun answered in the affirmative.
“They fought regularly so people in the neighborhood don’t bother
about them again. The little boy, Isaac was shouting my daddy my daddy.
So unfortunate because the deceased was not the talking type. She had
sliced his ear once and he did as if nothing happened. They had lived
here for four years,” she said.
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