By Aliyu Abdulwahid
An 85-year-old man, Pa Gabriel Aifuwa, has been taken into custody by detectives in the homicide section of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Edo State Police Command, for allegedly killing his wife.
The police also took into their custody the machete said to have been used for the killing.
The suspect, a father of five children and grandfather of 15, is accused of butchering his wife with a machete in their private residence at Iduowina axis of Aduwawa in Benin City on August 12, 2023 for persistently refusing him sexual intercourse.
Pa Aifuwa alleged that his wife, Mrs. Grace Aifuwa, 70, has been refusing him sex for over 10 years as all entreaties by their children and both families to make her perform her conjugal duty failed.
“My village is Obagie after Ehor in Uhumwonde Local Government Area of Edo State. I married my wife from Isiuwa along new Lagos Road after Benin City,” Pa Aifuwa narrated.
“I married her long time ago. She has two boys and three girls for me and our children also have their own children. Since our children are grown up, if I call my wife to come and sleep with me she will say no.
“My first daughter came from her husband’s house to talk to her mother to be sleeping with me. She told her daughter to keep quiet and asked if her daughter is not aware that she has ulcer.
“I am a driver, there is nothing I don’t hear about what my wife does outside. This time around, my children no longer listen to me but their mother and I don’t have money to go for prostitutes. Then, I said one day I will show my wife,” he said.
He admitted to killing his wife with a machete in their apartment while other occupants were away.
“I used cutlass to kill her since she does not allow me sleep with her. Also she has turned my children against me. My family and her own family talked to her but she didn’t change.
“After attacking her, I started feeling bad,” Pa Aifuwa said.
Contacted, one of Pa Aifuwa’s sons, Mr. Uyi, said the sex denial issue between his parents had remained irreconcilable for years but his father refused to understand her mother’s health status.
He did not, however, agree with his father’s claim that his children neglected him of late.
The Public Relations Officer, Edo State Police Command, SP Chidi Nwabuzor, said the suspect would be arraigned in court as his deceased wife had been deposited in a mortuary.
Pa Aifuwa’s case is not the first of its kind. Recall that one Mrs. Ugieki Asemota was also allegedly beaten to death by her husband, Emmanuel, at their residence at Aibangbe Street in Evbuotubu area of Benin City on Monday, June 28, 2021 for refusing him sexual intercourse.
