Nursing mother hangs self in Lagos

By WOLE BALOGUN

Friday, January 27, 2012
A nursing mother, 22, and mother of a 10-month-old-baby, has allegedly hanged herself in her one-room apartment on Sumonu Giwa Street, Ile-Epo area of Iyana Ipaja, Lagos.

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Said to be a teacher, the lady, simply called Mama Favour, was found hanging on a rope by her hubby, a petrol station attendant.

Daily Sun learnt that at about 10:00pm on Wednesday evening, Mama Favour’s husband, simply identified as Seun returned home to find the door locked and heard the cry of his 10-month-old baby from the room.

Seun, it was gathered, was furious and shouted at his wife to attend to the baby on time. After the several calls and orders that she should attend to the crying baby elicited no response, the enraged husband was said to have threatened to deal with his wife, thinking she was exhibiting her usual non-challant attitude.

Getting more agitated, Seun knocked severally on the door and later broke into the room when it appeared his wife was not answering. And what stared him in the face was the dangling, lifeless body of his wife, hanging loose from the rope she had allegedly used to hang herself some hours earlier. Shocked to the marrows, Seun had raised alarm which neighbours, particularly his landlord, Mr. Ajadi who rushed to the scene.

When Daily Sun called at 31, Sumonu Giwa Street yesterday afternoon, the deceased’s landlord, Mr. Ajadi said: “At about a few minutes to 10:00pm on Wednesday. I was about to take my dinner when I heard a noise from Seun in the passage. And I rushed to the passage to ask him what had happened.

He was shouting my wife my wife, And I asked what about his wife and he replied that I should come and see it in his room and when I got to the room, I saw the wife had hanged herself. I was shocked but immediately I went to the police station to report the case and that night the policemen came with us to see what had happened. By that time, she was already dead and the police later took the pictures of the scene. It is a strange thing that has happened because the woman who just hanged herself was an easygoing person. I can’t recall a time that she had any quarrel with her husband. They were usually an easy-going couple.”

Relatives of the deceased, her husband and her church members soon came and went to the police station. Some of the deceased’s neighours who spoke on condition of anonymity gave some hints into what they thought could be the motive behind Mama Favour’s alleged suicide.

They alleged before she eventually committed suicide, Mama favour had been behaving very strangely. One of them said: “Mama favour is said to have some spiritual problem. We learnt that her husband’s pastor had invited her on several occasions for deliverance and serious prayers. This is because of some strange attitudes she has been putting up lately. It was said that she had requested for poison when she visited her parents lately.

She had left home on several occasions in the night and wandered about till daybreak before she was later found. In fact, some of her husband’s relatives had advised her husband to take her to her parents and make her stay there till when they could find a solution to her strange behaviours.” At the Ile-Epo police station in the area, the policemen confirmed the story, but said that investigation would continue on it.