There’s a nonsensical post making the rounds on social media about a Nigerian man in Florida who allegedly disclosed that he killed his wife because, among other things, she was disrespectful and treated him poorly. According to the viral post, he said that when they got married, he didn’t want her to work. He relocated her and their children to the US, and because he missed his family, this man—who had somehow been sending money abroad to his family, paying rent for them, and bought his wife a car—relocated to drive Uber in the US, while his wife became the major breadwinner, thanks to her hair-braiding skills.
As she was now making more money, she allegedly began to mistreat him in various ways, insulting him and calling him “useless.” She even bought another house, moved into it with her children, and refused to let him move in with them.
I do not believe that this murderer gave any sort of interview detailing why he killed his wife. I don’t even know how much of the story is true, but the facts are that this man killed his wife, he’s in prison, and someone felt the need to construct this narrative, which attempts to blame the victim. Worse, people ran with it, and in some cases, even expressed sympathy for the murderer. This says a lot about what we—as a society—think of women and of a wife’s place in the home.
This concocted story also reminds me of the Igbo folktale about the man with a beautiful wife whom he ordered to stay home. He was a good provider; she never had to do anything because he loved her so much—bla bla bla—but the woman wasn’t satisfied with a life of pampered luxury. She was bored, and she wanted her own money, too. So, every time he went to the farm, instead of staying home and being a good, indulged wife, she went to the market to sell nuts or fruit she’d gathered. Her husband was none the wiser because she made sure to return before he did.
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One day, however, a dog bit off her nose, and this beautiful woman lost her beauty. Upset with her for disobeying him, and no longer finding her desirable, her husband kicked her out of the house. There certainly is something about strong, independent women that scares patriarchy. Such women, patriarchy tells us, must be punished. It is their fault for messing with the order of things, where their “loving” husbands keep them under lock and key—mere objects to be admired, with no agency. Patriarchy, of course, has no understanding of the concept of emotional control or abuse.
This Florida murderer isn’t the first Nigerian man to kill his wife. There have been countless other cases. These men come from different parts of Nigeria, but the common denominator in their stories is always the excuses spun for their actions, sometimes by outsiders who had no idea what was going on in these relationships. The denominator is that the woman has become wealthy or wealthier than the man, and therefore headstrong. Sometimes, they are nurses who were “trained in school” by their husbands, and who, now that they are “earning big money in America, think they are men.”
We’ve all heard versions of these stories. Someone even described it as an epidemic—Nigerian nurses, invested in by their husbands, who, once they “make it,” refuse to cook, to clean, to stay home, to be good housewives. And so the husbands snap and kill them, because what else is a man to do?
These stories, like the folktale, are told both to warn women against being ambitious and to exculpate toxic men from blame. A society in which men are blameless is a dangerous one for women. It is my hope that the younger generation—both men and women—aren’t paying attention to the stupid lessons these stories are trying to impart. An ambitious woman should excite, not threaten you. And a man who kills his wife just because his ego is bruised is the worst of the worst.
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