A 45-year-old man simply identified as Mr. Christopher beat his 39-year-old wife to death on Saturday night for more than 2,000 naira in Benin, the Edo State capital.
The Nigerian News Agency (NAN) reports that the incident happened at No.1 Agbontaen Street, next to Ebvareke Secondary School, near Agboniro Street, Uselu, Benin City.
The man allegedly beat his wife, Ms Isoken Christopher, a mother of three, after refusing to grant her the N 2,000 loan he had requested.
The eldest child of the deceased, Augustine Christopher, noted that his mother was in good health before the said incident.
The 13-year-old explained that his father, who is a junior worker at a waste manager in Benin , always beat his mother at the slightest provocation.
According to him, the event that led to his mothers death began with a phone call from his father to his mother where he asked for 2,000 N.
After the call, my dad came home around 9 pm and started beating her and accused her of always embarrassing her every time he asked for money.
“After the beating, I was trying to give my mother paracetamol and water, she asked when my father took the water and the drugs from me and threw them away.
It was after that she went out to pour water on her body and then lay outside.
My father locked us (the children) inside the room and came out to pounce on my mother where she was lying outside, already weakened from the previous beatings.
It was then that neighbors came and took her urgently to two different hospitals, where she was both pronounced dead on arrival, he said.
The young boy said his father was a smoker and was still drunk.
Likewise, a neighbor of the deceased, Ms Florence Obahiagbon, said it was the sound of the beating that brought them out.
On our way out we encountered the man beating his wife as usual and we tried to revive her by pouring water on her because she was weak at the time.
“We rushed her to two hospitals in the area where they both said she was dead on arrival.
We invited vigilantes who responded quickly and they caught the husband of the deceased who was then trying to escape after committing the crime”.
Ms Obahiagbon said the deceased was healthy and warm as they both attended the same party earlier in the day she (deceased) attended the party guest service.
She described the deceased as a hardworking woman who operated a fashion store in a trailer outside their rented apartment where they occupied a bedroom and living room.
Obahiagbon said the body of the deceased was taken away by police from the Nouveau-Bnin train station.
Meanwhile, state police command spokesperson SP Bello Kontongs confirmed the report.
He said, however, that the command had yet to obtain details of the incident from the divisional police station in charge of the area.
