Please how can we stop this madness???

Have you noticed the trend yet? Have you been reading the papers lately and keeping abreast with the shocking reports of married couples who are slaughtering each other lately? Are you aware that between late last year to now, there must be at least over a dozen wives and husbands who are in various prisons scattered all over the country for murdering their partners? Sounds unbelievable, right? But its the fact, not fiction. There is evil in the land. Couples, mostly married, are slaughtering each other out of blind rage and bitterness. Couples who once professed love to each other, swore to love each other till their dying day now despise each other so much they hardly can bare to breath in the same air under the same roof.

The aforementioned issue was brought to the fore lately when the devil himself tore apart the home of a prominent Hausa couple based in Abuja. The story was that the wife had been suspecting the husband of cheating on her for a long time, and on that fateful day, she had reached boiling point. Blinded by rage, she stabbed her husband in a couple of dangerous places. He lost so much blood that he died before any meaningful medical attention could come to him at the hospital where he was taken. As you read this, the young wife who has a 7 month old baby by her husband, has been arrested and arraigned in court and from  the innuendos of legal experts who should know, she is certainly on her way to jail. It will amuse you to know that, on the very day the shocking news of the Abuja couple broke, another lady, a lawyer by profession, from the South-West, was earning herself a 7 year jail term for killing her husband! And less than twenty four hours later, another shocker. This time, it was a man that was arrested for matchetting and poisoning his wife and mother of his only child -a boy. In fact, it was the five year old boy who exposed his own father when the man tried to conceal the murder by claiming his wife committed suicide. We could go on and on. There are, sadly, dozens of other sordid tales like these that have happened in various parts of the country. But the one million dollar question is, why is this happening? What evil has befallen our marriage institution? Why is it that a lot of couples these days no longer can stand each other? 

Our findings have revealed that a few factors are responsible for this unfortunate development. Many have been pretty quick to blame it on the recession. They say the fact that the economic power of the man has been shattered and so can no longer provide for his home like he used, arguments, quarrels and chaos have become the order of the day in many homes. True, they do make some sense. Others have argued that what we see happening is the result of bottled up anger, frustration and bitterness by many wives resulting into the sudden explosion of rage that often ends up consuming the man or woman they once loved and ultimately lands them in jail. A few others share a different opinion, they think this is nothing but a sign of the end time and only a spiritual cleansing and rebirth of the entire nation can stop the evil that is tearing the very fabric of our marital existence to shreds. While we acknowledge that every single school of thought represented here does have a point, we wonder, what sort of help did the woman get when she was crying and reaching out to those who could've helped intervene in the situation before things got out of hand? Did the late husband's mother/ father/ sister/ uncle/ aunty, or anyone in the position to speak to him, look him in the eye and told him it was wrong of him to be putting his wife through such emotional pain? Rather than conveniently telling the wife, 'don't worry, he will change, God will change him,' did anybody have the guts to roundly scold the man and knock him back in line? What are our churches doing about this menace? What are the Imams doing? How come we haven't got to hear of reputable men of God talking seriously about this problem? As it is now, it has become the collective responsibility of everyone to strive to reach out to the emotionally frustrated and sometimes abused woman and give her a shoulder to lean on while also seeking ways to bring the husband to his senses and draw his attention to the possible consequences of his actions. For the records, this article does not seek to justify the senseless killings of husbands or wives as the case may be, and neither does it attempt to encourage more people to engage in any senseless killing. All we are saying is, we should not begin to seek for solution when already at the verge of losing a loved one, instead, let us look for ways to stop the madness from taking place in the first place. There are hundreds of bitter and frustrated women out there, let the men begin to show compassion towards their wives, let them re-enact that beautiful love that was brought them together, before its too late. Remember, all hell hath no fury like a woman scorned...