I read this story which was published in the Vanguard Newspaper and up till now I am yet to recover from the shock. Really, the story has caused a nervous shock to me. Night after night I have night mares. The question in my mind begging for an answer is, “Is this man called Henry Nnamdi, the husband of Mercy a human being?”
It is a domestic violence at its height. Hmm! Mercy was 22 years old when she met Henry who was 23 then in 1996. The two fell in love which lasted for 12 years. The love between the two was built on a faulty foundation, so it seemed as Henry was known to be a heavy drunkard. He is also a chronic smoker. But Mercy who like any young girl of her age never knew the difference between love and infatuation stuck to the man like Juliet to Romeo.
Their love blossomed and resulted in marriage. But trouble started few months after Mercy moved into the matrimonial home to live with the husband in his one room apartment at No.3, Lambe Street, Ago, Okota area of Isolo, Lagos State. The husband stopped her from doing her hair dressing work. The husband before wedding promised to rent a shop for her where she would be doing her handiwork, but he didn't.
The husband’s business is dry cleaning, but he has no shop as he used to bring people’s clothing materials home to wash and iron. His money from this business was usually spent on alcohol and cigarettes. According to their neighbours, a day never passed without a fight or squabble between the couple.
The climax of their trouble happened when Henry the husband returned one night around 11 o’clock. The wife who was waiting for the husband to return before she would go to sleep went and fetched water for the husband. After he had finished bathing, the wife served him food and waited until he finished eating before she retired to her bed to sleep.
On that fateful night when electricity was restored to the area, Henry woke up and was ironing his customers’ clothes. The woman who had just breastfed her one-year baby boy was fast asleep when she noticed a very hot something being pressed on her skin. She screamed and turned to the other side of the bed thinking that it happened in a dream. But alas, she was wrong. It was a reality. The husband was the one pressing a hot iron on her. Yes, Henry bounced on his wife and pressed the hot iron on her back and other parts of her body including her breasts using the screw driver to peel off her flesh at the same time.
Mercy cried for help and started begging the husband, asking why he was doing that to her, but the man accused her of sleeping with his own father - that is the woman’s father-in-law. Mercy in agony begged but the evil husband refused to show mercy to Mercy.
The woman cried loud for help from their neighbours, but neighbours didn’t come out to rescue her because of their belief that it was just their usual fight which was no longer strange to them. Some of their neighbours confirmed that since they started living as husband and wife, there had been shout and fight from their one room apartment almost on daily basis; and they at one time reported Henry to the Police and he was asked to sign an undertaking that he would never use his hands on his wife again but he did not stop.
The woman in a hospital bed narrated the story as follows:
“It all happened on a Saturday. I had prepared boiled yam, awaiting the arrival of my husband. After a long wait, I decided to eat mine and left his on the table. He came back few minutes to 11 p.m and went straight to bed. Then at about 1 a.m, power was restored and he went to put off the power generating set and switched over to electricity. After that, he started ironing his customers’ clothes because he is a dry cleaner.
I was later woken up by the cry of our one year old baby boy who apparently needed breast milk. All the while, we were outside before power was restored. Before retiring inside, I took my bath and fetched water for him to have his.
I was fast asleep when I was woken up by a sharp pain on my back. I thought it was a night mare. But when I opened my eyes, lo and behold, my husband was planting the hot iron he was using on the clothes on me. Immediately I turned, he planted it on my chest. When I raised my hand to prevent it, he planted it on one of my hands. By then I did not know what to do. I started screaming and calling on my neighbours for help. I raised my leg to prevent him, again, he landed the hot iron on me.
As he planted the hot iron hard on my flesh, he would use a screw driver to peel off the flesh. At a point, I became too weak to shout. I begged him to stop but he would not. Rather, he would ask me to tell him how many times his father slept with me. even in pains, I begged him to listen to himself and imagine what he was saying. My response seemed to anger him the more because he would plant it harder, leaving it on my skin and at the same time, asked me to tell him the truth.
“At that point, my baby woke up and started crying. I begged him to allow me breast feed the baby. But before I could finish the statement, he placed the hot iron on my breasts, threatening to kill me if I shout. As he lifted the iron, I saw that the flesh from my breast had stuck to the iron surface. Again he pressed it harder on my stomach, leaving it there. I managed to turn, only for the iron to land on my lap.
He told me there was no way of escape for me that night; that members of his gang were outside to take my corpse to an unknown destination by the time he finished with me. At that point, I knew the end had come for me. I managed to shout for help with all the strength in me but I could not.
At that point, he forcefully took Ebuka from the bed and went outside. I decided to go out because I did not know what he would do next when he came back. I cannot tell how I crawled out of the room. But I found myself in the kitchen naked, from where two men who saw me gave me wrapper to cover myself.
As I was there trying to fathom how I would escape from the compound, somebody shouted that my husband had killed my child. That was the last thing I heard. I guessed I passed out because I later opened my eyes and found myself in the hospital”.
Some of their neighbours confirmed that ‘since they started living as husband and wife, there had never a time we did not experience shout or crisis from their one room apartment’.
Henry Nnamdi has been arrested and taken to the State Criminal Investigation Department, Panti, Yaba Area of Lagos state.
Presently, Mercy Nnamdi is going through unbearable pains. He is still in a hospital receiving treatment. We in the Mighty Voice feel highly concerned and pray that the authority should charge the man to court. We call for appropriate penalty for the man to serve as deterrent to others. This is not the case to be treated as ‘a family affair’. This is purely an attempted murder on the woman and murder of the innocent one year old boy. We in the Mighty Voice are calling for justice.
Aminat Adesope is one of our Staff Writers.
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