Between 2006 and 2014, more than 50 Nigerian husbands murdered their wives in what might be considered crimes of passion as a result of alienation of affection, women empowerment, emasculation, and loss of self esteem. Below are some of the heart wrenching tragedies involving Nigerian men in the United States of America:
A few hours before the New Year of 2007, Kelechi Charles Emeruwa ambushed his estranged wife, Chidiebere Omenihu Ochulo at her home in a manicured Maryland suburb, armed with a kitchen knife. Emeruwa sliced and stabbed Chidiebere several times until she collapsed and died. Chidiebere, a registered nurse died at 36, leaving behind a raging estranged husband and three children. Chidiebere, was found dead on January 2, 2007. Days later, Emeruwa, then 46, was captured and charged with her murder. Today, he sits in a Maryland penitentiary serving life sentence for fatally stabbing his estranged wife to death. This killing is just one amongst several horrible stories of Nigerian husbands that had gruesomely murdered their wives within the past 26 years in America. These women were either registered nurses or professionals in the medical field.
In the case of David and Priscilla Ochola of Hennepin, Minnesota, the killer- husband, during a call to the police confessed to killing his wife because he was tired of being disrespected. On a cold January day in Minnesota, arguments ensued between David and his wife Priscilla: David, enraged during the argument, dashed into his bedroom, fetched his gun and fatally shot his wife. He called the police and explained thus: Yes I have killed the woman that messed up my life; the woman that has destroyed me. I am at Shalom West. My name is David and I am all yours. Priscilla Ochola was a 28-year-old registered nurse. The 50-year old husband allegedly told authorities that he was tired of being disrespected by his wife. He married Priscilla in Nigeria, relocated her to United States and sponsored her nursing education. The couple had two children.
One of Nigeria’s most respected poet and professor of English and Literature, Dubem Okafor is died on Sunday, August 25, 2010 in the United States after shooting his wife Cheryl 37.
Reports and calls from the US say Okafor, 64, cousin to the late poet, Christopher Okigbo apparently distraught his wife had left him a few days earlier, arranged to meet her at his sister’s Reading home, Pennsylvania, where he shot her several times and himself once in the head at 3:45 p.m. Sunday, police said.
A small-caliber handgun was found near the bodies, police said. The Berks County coroner declared her death a homicide and his death a suicide.
Chukwudubem A. Okafor, 64, an associate professor of English at Kutztown University, was said to have shot his wife, Cheryl V., 37, who was an artist, several times Sunday afternoon and turned the gun on himself shortly after they arrived separately at the home of his sister, Patricia Ofilin, in the 300 block of Pear Street, investigators said.
Long before she was shot dead by her husband in a murder-suicide in Reading, Cheryl V. Okafor was a victim of domestic violence in her previous relationship.
On Sunday, Okafor was shot by her husband, Chukwudubem A. Okafor, inside a relative’s house in the 300 block of Pear Street, authorities said. He then killed himself with the same gun, investigators said.
Okafor was born Cheryl Moncrieffe in Jamaica and came to the United States when she was 9.
She grew up in Reading and graduated from Reading High School in 1991. She later attended Reading Area Community College and Kutztown University, where she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in art education.
Pharmacist Olufemi Ademoye, Charged With Beating His Wife Juliet To Death With Baseball Bat
On June 17, 2010, detectives were called to a home in the 8600 block of Villa Largo Drive late Wednesday morning where they found the body of a woman covered in blood.
She’s identified as Juliet Ademoye.
Her husband, Olufemi Ademoye, told detectives they had a fight inside the home. He ran to a neighbors house to get help and to call 911.
Detectives say Ademoye claims his wife had a heart attack.
Inside the bedroom, officers found evidence of a different story. The master bedroom and bathroom were covered in blood. An aluminum baseball bat with blood that matched the victim’s blood was found nearby.
John Munoz, lives next door to the couple and often saw the couples son playing basketball. Munoz said when he first heard about the alleged crime, he immediately felt for the young boy.
“The kids life is ruined forever,” Munoz said. “No matter how much family he’s got to back him up, it’s nothing like losing your father and mother.”
Munoz said the couples son was out of town for the summer.
Ademoye is now charged with second-degree murder and for the first time Thursday morning went before a Hillsborough County Judge.
Nigerian man in US kills wife, mother-in-law, commits suicide
On June 11, 2021, a 34-year-old Nigerian man, Udoamaka Nwamu, has reportedly committed suicide after killing his estranged wife and her mother in the United States.
According to the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, Nwamu, a resident of Gerogia, who recently separated from his wife, Khaliya, 24, had invaded his in-laws’ home, killing his ex-wife and mother-in-law, then taking his own life on Sunday morning.
A police report states that Nwamu forced his way into the home near Long Lake Drive in Douglasville by firing a handgun into the front and back of the home.
“When Deputies arrived, they were met with gunfire from inside the home,” Douglas County Sheriff, Tim Pounds stated in a press release on Thursday.
“The Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team and a trained hostage negotiator responded on the scene as deputies took cover.
“During the course of the negotiations with Udoamaka, a single gunshot was heard and the S.E.R.T team immediately made entry into the home,” Pounds said.
The Sheriff added that Deputies found Nwamu dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, while Kaliyah and her 46-year-old mother, Nikita Green, were identified as deceased by officials.
Nigerian man kills self after shooting wife, grandmother in US
On June 12, 2022, a Nigerian man, Obinna Igbokwe, on Thursday died by suicide after shooting his wife, Tangela, and grandmother in Texas, United States of America.
NBC reported that Igbokwe left home with his three-month-old son, after shooting both women in their heads on Wednesday.
Though the wife was critically injured and hospitalised, her grandmother died from the injury.
While on the run, Igbokwe dropped the child in a car seat at a local hotel.
When the police were alerted of his presence in the area, the suspect shot himself and died from the injury.
A statement from the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday read, “On June 2, 2022, at about 12:00am, detectives with the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office were contacted by the Corsicana Police Department and advised they had Mansa Igbokwe in their care.
“According to the Corsicana Police Department, a male dropped off the child in a car seat at a local hotel and said he would be right back, but never returned.
“Since the male did not return, the Corsicana Police Department was contacted and learned the male left in a white passenger car, which they believed to be Igbokwe.
“Additional alerts were sent out to local Ellis and Navarro County law enforcement agencies alerting them that Igbokwe was in the area.
“At about 1:05 am, Ennis Police Department Officers located the white Honda Igbokwe was driving and attempted to stop the vehicle.
“After a short pursuit, the Honda stopped in a parking lot where officers observed and heard a single gunshot come from the interior of the Honda.
“Law enforcement officers began life-saving measures and summoned medical personnel, but due to the severity of the injury Igbokwe succumbed to his wounds at a Dallas Hospital at about 5:20 am.
“Mansa Igbokwe is safe and unharmed and has been reunited with his family. Our hearts are with the family affected by this tragic and horrific crime and we are working with the victims to ensure they receive support and assistance.”
The latest of these tragic events is that of Hassan and Sarah Adeyemo, when on August 26, 2023, shot and killed his wife in Florida,
This has been a sad, hot topic in the Nigerian immigrant community in America. Why did, and do these Nigerian men suddenly become murderous? Is this as a consequence of alienation in an alien nation?
Well, let us first look at the complexion of these murders. As Chief Chika Onyeani, publisher of the New York-based African Sun Times, notes, “[w]ith the exception of Nigerian-born pharmacist, Olufemi Ademoye, who bludgeoned his wife to death with a baseball bat in June, 2010, and the most recent one of Hassan Adeyemo, all the killings have been by Igbo, and their victims have been registered nurses.”
Similarly, all the victims (except Okafor’s wife, Cheryl, who came here from Jamaica at the age of 9) came to America by way of marriage to U.S.-based Nigerian men.
It is difficult to say with certainty what really drove these Nigerian men to murder their wives, but it’s easy to see that it’s an extreme manifestation of a clash of cultural values. America has become one huge demasculinizing matriarchy. And Nigeria is, of course, a massively patriarchal, almost male-chauvinist society. A poorly managed commixture of these deeply contrasting values can be culturally— and literally—combustible. And here is why.
Women here enjoy privileges and protections under the law that men from our kind of patriarchal cultural setting find unnervingly emasculating and humiliating. For instance, if a woman accuses you of rape or of domestic violence—whether or not this is true—you’re dead meat. In America, when it’s a woman’s words against a man’s, the man’s are lies. That’s why a man accused of rape—or of domestic violence— is often considered guilty until proven innocent.
Marriage laws are also heavily weighted in favor of women, that is, by the standards of our patriarchal African cultures. For instance, in the event of a divorce, the woman is almost always awarded custody of the children. And the man is often compelled by law to pay the woman “child support”—which usually adds up to a fortune— until the children are 18. If the divorce is initiated by the man, he will also pay spousal support. That is why divorce pauperizes men here.
This “women-friendly” legal regime has also conduced to the flowering of a phenomenon called paternity fraud. Paternity fraud occurs when a woman falsely claims that a man she’s had sex with is the biological father of her child with the sole purpose of collecting child support from the man. DNA testing has reduced this significantly.
To be fair, the pro-women flavor of the laws here was intended to redress and compensate for the historical injustices that women have suffered—and continue to suffer, although to a lesser degree now in the West— in the hands of men. But some people think the anti-male bias of the laws here is getting truly out of hand. It has denaturalized male-female relationship, is destroying the institution of marriage, and may even threaten reproductive futurism.
This is particularly so for people from patriarchal societies who find themselves in the West. Some of our women come here and find that they have all these lavish freedoms that they thought existed only in the realm of fantasy. For instance, they are for all practical purposes the heads of families. They, not their husbands, choose the names of children. They have sex with their husbands only at their pleasure; otherwise, the husband will be guilty of “spousal rape.” And they can send their husbands to prison with a mere call to the police. For women coming from cultures where the moral excellence of women is defined by how much they “submit” to their husbands, these liberties can be staggeringly inebriating in their generosity.
I’ve heard of Nigerian women who physically assault their husbands at home and then proceed to call 911 (the emergency telephone number in America) when their husbands attempt to retaliate. My friend’s wife recently shared with us the story of her friend, a petite 5-foot-tall woman, who slaps her 6-foot plus husband each time they quarrel and then threatens to call 911 each time the man charges at her in rage. And she boasts about her “exploits” when she chit-chats with her friends! That’s a keg waiting to explode right there.
Some Nigerian women go out of their way to force their husbands to divorce them (e.g. through in-your-face marital infidelity) because they know the courts will hand them over more than half of their husband’s property and give them custody of their children. One Nigerian man murdered his ex-wife when he discovered that she was building a mansion in Port Harcourt with the child and spousal support he was paying her.
But this is cowardly and utterly condemnable. Nothing, absolutely nothing, can justify the murder of any person who didn’t kill anybody. A smart, self-assured man would leave America and relocate to Nigeria if a woman is exploiting him. Many Nigerian men have actually done that.
Well, mine is admittedly a male perspective on a really sad and disturbing phenomenon. But it’s noteworthy that the same Igbo men who are most susceptible to murder their wives in America have the most stable marriages back in Nigeria. The stereotype of the Igbo man is that he advertises his prosperity from the glow and comfort evident in his wife and children. In return for this, the wife submits to him.
America ruptures this patriarchal matrimonial arithmetic. Here, nurses (who are disproportionately the victims of these murders) make a lot of money. In most cases, they make as much money as—and sometimes more money than—the husbands who brought them from their Nigerian villages and trained her through American nursing schools. This destroys the basis of the matrimonial submission their husband expect from them. When you add this to the unimaginable liberties women enjoy here, the tensile stress can be immense.
But are these enough reasons to slay their wives or are these ego trips because they were no longer the proverbial bread winners of the family?
It is strange and difficult to determine the cold killings as most husbands awaiting trials remained mute. During trials, plea bargains were usually negotiated which led to sentencing of several years in jail or life terms in place of death sentences.
But I think it’s also time that Nigerian men in America to learn to live with the new culture in their places of self-exile—or leave this place. They date American women but go back home to “import” women from their villages when it comes time to get married. Unfortunately, the women come here and become worse than the American women the men avoided marrying out of fear of cultural incompatibility.
CONTRIBUTORS: Daily Trust, Punch, Mataz Arising.
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