In Nigeria, a chilling stream of gender-based violence is sweeping via communities, with home abuse spiralling into catastrophic assaults and intimate companions becoming killers. From the brutal slayings of ladies through their closest confidants to cold-blooded murders by the hands of strangers, the surge in femicides is a rising nightmare for numerous girls and women. On this stunning document, Victor Ayeni delves into the harrowing instances of femicides, exposing the terrifying truth of violence from those that must give protection to, now not hurt
As Mrs Cordelia Okonye knelt ahead of her daughter’s headstone on Monday, a wreath of pristine plant life in hand to celebrate her posthumous twenty third birthday, a stream of indescribable sadness crashed over her.
The ache was once uncooked and unrelenting as though Augusta Osedion’s brutal demise had simply happened.
Sitting at the bitter slab of the marble headstone, Mrs Okonye closed her visions, and in that future, Osedion was once 17 once more—colourful, filled with era, slipping a crimson get dressed into her arms and giggling as she shocked her with a birthday cake.
However that beloved reminiscence, as soon as so brilliant, were eclipsed through an insufferable void. The get dressed she had as soon as proficient her mom now clung to Mrs Okonye’s body like a 2d pores and skin, steeped within the unhappiness of loss.
Each February 3 has transform a month when love and loss intertwined, stretching past past. She made a vow to deliver her daughter high plant life each yr, till they met once more within the afterlife.
“I will forever mark your birthday with you in your temporary resting place. Just know that I love you forever,” Mrs Okonye upcoming wrote in an Instagram put up.
Osedion, fondly referred to as Austa, were greater than a daughter—she was once a celeb within the virtual global, a social media influencer whose hanging presence had graced more than one manufacturers. However her era was once scale down snip on July 13, 2023, at simply 21, in an operate of unspeakable violence.
Her boyfriend, Benjamin Nnanyereugo—infamously referred to as KillerBoi—allegedly plunged a knife into her in a are compatible of enrage, depart her useless in his condo at Oral Property, Lekki, Lagos Shape. They’d been in combination for 3 years, a courting that had spiralled into catastrophic chaos.
Days ahead of her homicide, Osedion had referred to as her mom in misery, talking of a quarrel with Nnanyereugo.
Mrs Okonye had attempted to fix the rift, attaining out time and again. However on July 11, her daughter’s accentuation pale into quietness. Cries went unanswered. Messages had been met with a haunting void.
Panic all set in. Without a word of honour from Osedion, Mrs Okonye grew to become to her daughter’s roommate, who helped her observe ill Nnanyereugo’s place of dwelling in Ikota.
A kick back gripped her as she noticed Osedion’s Mercedes Benz C30 parked in entrance of the construction—the one signal that her daughter were there. The condo, on the other hand, was once locked, eerily peaceful.
Fearing the worst, she reported the case to the police on July 15. When detectives from the Ajah Police Station pressured not hidden the door, a tragic scene awaited them.
There, in a lake of cloudy, congealed blood, Osedion’s useless frame lay. The marks of violence—deep gashes, bruises, indicators of attempt—spoke of a last, determined battle for survival. The colourful younger girl who had as soon as lit up displays was once now lowered to a awful statistic, her frame carted away to the Basic Medical institution mortuary in Yaba for post-mortem and preservation.
A chilling word believed to be from Nnanyereugo, was once recovered on the crime scene—a peaceful, evil message that detectives handled as a the most important showcase. However the guy who as soon as professed love for Osedion had vanished and slipped into the shadows.
Because the investigation unfolds, something rest unshaken: a mom’s suffering, woven into each flower she lays, each tear she sheds, and each whispered word of honour of timeless love at her daughter’s grave.
Suspect escapes, adjustments id
In a layout of now-deleted Instagram tales posted on July 17, 2023, Nnanyereugo wrote that he were given into a controversy with Osedion, which led him to “mistakenly” stab her, then which he fled out of concern.
“I intend to end my life now,” the runaway suspect wrote. “I want to do the right thing and turn myself in.”
In October 2023, the 26-year-old suspect mentioned to be a blockchain developer, was once declared sought after through the Lagos Shape Police Command for the homicide of his female friend.
Then his photograph was once posted on social media through Osedion’s nation, somebody in Sierra Leone known the suspect, who was once due to this fact arrested through the rustic’s government at a nightclub in Freetown.
To evade justice, Nnanyereugo had modified his identify to Kanu Samuel and spent over $25,000 to acquire a Sierra Leonean passport, concealing his id.
“We have commenced the extradition process to bring KillaBoi into custody in Nigeria,” Lagos Shape Police Nation Family members Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, instructed Saturday PUNCH in October 2023.
Then again, then 15 months, not anything has been heard concerning the suspect’s whereabouts, and the femicide case seems to have long gone bitter.
Ultimate generation, a video clip purpotedly appearing Nnanyereugo dwelling immense in a membership in Doha, Qatar, emerged, sparking a lot outrage from netizens.
Hundeyin didn’t reply to a message despatched through our correspondent inquiring whether or not there were any tendencies within the suspect’s extradition procedure.
Alarming stream of femicide
Osedion’s chilling homicide by the hands of the person she cherished is a grim truth that day by day stares 1000’s of women and girls all over the world—specifically in Nigeria—within the face.
The Ecu Institute for Gender Equality defines femicide because the killing of a girl or woman on account of her gender. This mode of violence continuously takes other methods.
It steadily comes to the homicide of ladies because of intimate spouse violence, the torture and misogynistic slaying of ladies, and the killing of girls and women through male nation participants within the identify of “restoring family honour.”
In line with a 2024 document through UN Ladies and the United Countries Place of job on Medication and Crime, roughly 85,000 girls and women had been deliberately killed in 2023.
This estimate equates to the demise of 1 girl or woman each 10 mins—a stark mirrored image of the way patriarchal societies systematically devalue feminine lives.
The document additional visible that 60 consistent with cent of those sufferers had been murdered through intimate companions or nation participants.
Amongst those chilling and wretched stories of femicide was once that of the past due Mrs Ugochukwu Chima, a faithful mom of 3, whose era as soon as blossomed in Abakaliki, Ebonyi Shape, ahead of being cruelly scale down snip.
The 45-year-old was once allegedly overwhelmed with iron rods on September 4, 2024, at her house in Kpirikpiri through her husband of 16 years, Mr Eseni Chima. She in the end succumbed to her accidents on October 24.
In line with an observer, the couple were grappling with irreconcilable variations lengthy ahead of the fateful night time when their war erupted round nighttime.
Some of the couple’s neighbours, a policeman, who heard the scuffle among them, reportedly on a tight schedule into their area to pause up the battle. Then again, he was once allegedly attacked through Eseni and sustained accidents.
“The man physically assaulted his wife. She was taken to the hospital but succumbed to the injuries inflicted on her. The man is in our custody,” the Ebonyi Shape Police Nation Family members Officer, DSP Joshua Ukandu, disclosed.
At Ugochukwu’s funeral on January 25, suffering hung large within the wind as pals and nation struggled to book again their tears.
With voices trembling and hearts confused through sadness, they painted a portrait of a tender soul—an easygoing girl with a center filled with approval—whose premature passing was once a wound too deep to undergo.
Ladies at risk
On a fateful month in October closing yr, Felicia Namkywa, a dealer in Agwatashi, Nasarawa Shape, got down to meet a consumer named Abubakar Ibrahim.
Tragically, she had negative inkling that the person she sought to satisfy had woven a evil plot—one that may cruelly thieve her era away.
Earlier than this vile incident, Ibrahim owed Namkywa N40,000. When he referred to as her, he lured her to a chosen location in one of the vital settlements inside Obi Native Govt Segment underneath the pretence of buying grains.
Ibrahim was once now not rejected—he was once joined through an companion, Isah Ayuba. In combination, they allegedly led the unsuspecting dealer right into a jungle, the place they strangled her and discarded her frame in a swamp.
Following a grievance lodged on the Obi Divisional Police Headquarters about Namkywa’s disappearance, and then all efforts to track her whereabouts proved futile, the suspects had been tracked ill and arrested through the police.
In any other grim incident in Elemoro, Lekki, a girl known as Mrs Gloria and her son had been allegedly murdered through their neighbour, Vincent Ukpai.
A dispute over whose accountability it was once to wash their shared compound escalated right into a sour argument at the morning of September 5.
In line with Lagos Shape Police Nation Family members Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, Ukpai brutally attacked Gloria and her son with a weapon, finishing their lives in a tragic operate of violence.
Within the aftermath of the murders, he allegedly concealed their our bodies within a immense sack, frequently known as a “Ghana Must Go” bag.
Between January 1 and December 31, 2024, negative fewer than 133 Nigerian girls, together with youngsters, had been sufferers of suspected gender-related violence, in keeping with a document through DOHS Cares Foot, a non-governmental organisation.
“Femicide is a crime against life,” the Founding father of DOHS Cares Foot, Ololade Ajayi, mentioned. “It should be regarded as a societal problem, even though each case is an individual woman’s tragic story.”
“It’s worrisome that neither the Lagos Shape Legislation on Coverage in opposition to Home Violence 2007 nor the Violence In opposition to Individuals Prohibition Operate 2015 has a provision for gender-motivated killings, which is a rampant incidence within the nation.
“This led to us drafting a bill that criminalises femicide, which was submitted to the Lagos State House of Assembly.”
Ajayi defined that the draft contained categories guiding the rules of investigation and prosecution, statutory barriers, procedural legitimacy and restrictions, in addition to preventive and precautionary measures.
Violence fuelled through misogyny
Misogyny, as outlined through the Dictionary of Gender Research, is “the contempt for or dislike of women,” an idea this is seen in patriarchal cultures “which constrain women by regarding them as lesser beings than men.”
A 2024 analysis learn about printed within the Terrorism and Political Violence magazine defined that misogyny predicts “violent extremist intentions, willingness to engage in interpersonal violence, and increased support for violence against women,” specifically amongst males who “experience a sense of violated entitlement.”
Most likely it was once this overwhelming sense of self-entitlement that led Ayomide Adeleye, a 200 Stage Philosophy scholar at Olabisi Onabanjo College, Ogun Shape, to grab and blast his meant pal and fellow church member, Christianah Idowu.
Idowu, a 300-level scholar on the Federal College of Agriculture, Abeokuta, had left her house within the Itaoluwo segment of Ikorodu one August month, en path to her business coaching, when the hail started to fall.
Looking for refuge in brief at Adeleye’s nation store, positioned out of doors his area, she deliberate to renew her progress as soon as the hail eased. Then again, because the drizzle grew heavier, the suspect reportedly invited her into his house for additional safe haven.
Date in his area, Adeleye tried to have his approach with Idowu, however she resisted. This, in keeping with his confession to the police, led him to blast the 21-year-old.
Then amassing ransom from the woman’s nation, understanding operatives had been in a position to discover Adeleye’s location throughout the BVN and account main points old in amassing the cash, to his arrest.
The suspect confessed to burying his sufferer in a shallow grave inside his compound. He has since been remanded in prison.
An terrible destiny additionally took place 17-year-old Falmata in Bama, Borno Shape, this past by the hands of her paternal uncle, Awana.
In line with her mom, Yakaka Aisami, the incident happened all through the Muslim Ramadan fasting length, when Falmata was once faced through her uncle, who lived in the similar compound.
“He came out of his room ranting,” Aisami recounted. “He said, ‘Stupid child. Is she not your mother? Why would you talk to her like that? Why would you be talking back to her? Wallahi, I will deal with you right now, you disrespectful brat,’” she was once quoted as announcing through HumAngle.
She defined that Awana had a historical past of hitting Falmata, depart her with scars within the life, which brought about {the teenager} to reply angrily to him.
Awana reportedly was at the fireside to select up burning firewood and tried to assault Falmata with it. {The teenager}, in defiance, additionally grabbed a work of timber.
Regardless of makes an attempt to independent them and secure Falmata shield from the enrage of her paternal uncle, Awana in the end killed Falmata.
Raped and murdered
For the Adekolure nation, June 13, 2024, will endlessly be etched of their reminiscences as a month that introduced inconceivable anguish to their hearts.
Their daughter, Glory, who had not too long ago graduated from the Segment of Chemistry, College of Benin, Edo Shape, had left the home at the morning of the fateful month to procedure her clearance on the establishment.
However to the horror of the nation, upcoming that month, the battered and useless frame of the 22-year-old was once dumped underneath a tree akin to the nation area within the Iyowa people of Benin Town.
“Her lifeless body was deposited at UBTH mortuary on June 15, 2024, with the help of the Nigeria Police from the Ekiadolor Division. She was beaten, raped, and killed. Please, Nigerians, come to my rescue. The help I need now is just for my innocent sister; my mum can’t hold herself,” an X consumer, Softbaba, a brother of dead body, wrote.
Fifteen days then the homicide, an unnamed suspect within the crime was once arrested in Asaba, Delta Shape, following an investigation through the police.
The suspect confessed to killing now not simplest Adekolure but in addition 8 alternative younger girls.
A human rights legal professional and gender recommend, Gladys Emmanuel, identified that with the emerging development of femicide and gender-based violence around the nation, a condition of disaster must be referred to as through all stakeholders.
“There’s a want for virtual literacy for women and girls as a result of these kinds of people are lured from the web. They don’t perceive the purple flags, and so they don’t know when to ban a dialog.
“Sometimes, the perpetrators of femicides are strangers. Other times, they are persons known to the individual. At the moment, it’s so sad that we don’t have a holistic hub that can address issues of gender-based violence and femicide,” she defined.
‘We killed her after she fed us’
When the frame of a common caterer in Akure, Ondo Shape, Mrs Olakunbi Adene, was once discovered useless within her condo then 4 days of being lacking, nobody in an instant suspected who can have performed it.
Then again, then her lacking telephones had been tracked through detectives, the names of her two maximum relied on staff confirmed up—Valuable, a driving force, and Philip, a cook dinner.
Progressive through greed and cruelty, the duo had visited Adene’s place of dwelling on July 25, 2024, the place they had been warmly welcomed, and he or she had even given them luxurious foods then their home paintings.
The motive force, keen to begin a “Yahoo-Yahoo” (Web fraud), had deliberate to thieve his boss’s ATM card and recruited the cook dinner as an companion.
Then they had been apprehended through the police, the home team of workers confessed how they descended at the girl and mercilessly stabbed her in spite of her determined pleas for them to supplementary her era.
To shield up their crimes, the duo allegedly attempted to all set their sufferer ablaze, however the gasoline cylinder didn’t burst as that they had deliberate.
“I was the one who took the body to the mortuary. They burnt part of the stomach, clothes, gas cylinder, and other apparatus were taken away by the police,” the brother of the sufferer, Adebola Oyeneye, mentioned.
Boyfriends from hell
On September 10, 2024, the Edo Shape Police Command paraded 12 suspects who had been arrested over a territory of crimes, from homicide to kidnapping.
Some of the suspects, Kingsley Paul, an 18-year-old, confessed to murdering his lover, an unnamed 38-year-old girl who sought the heat of affection in his disastrous include.
Paul mentioned he took the lady to a resort in Benin Town then an indubitably price of N2,000, which she paid him.
“There was no quarrel between us, I just suddenly took out a knife and stabbed her to death,” the suspect added.
Sadly, his sufferer’s facet of the tale or the reality of what transpired among them would by no means be identified.
That very same generation, any other 38-year-old woman, Naajatu Ahmad, was once allegedly killed all through a controversy through her fiancé, Abubakar Kurna, within the Nomansland segment of Fagge Native Govt Segment of Kano Shape.
In October 2023, a 300-level scholar of Organic Chemistry on the College of Port Harcourt, Justine Nkang, was once killed through her boyfriend, Damian Chinemere, a 400-level engineering scholar on the similar college.
Sunday PUNCH amassed that the duo were fanatics for roughly 3 years however had been getting ready to a split-up ahead of the incident took place.
The past due Nkang was once first reported lacking through her nation participants, who attempted to search out her whereabouts within the Etche Native Govt Segment of the condition.
Slightly a day upcoming, Chinemere was once apprehended through safety operatives, who additionally discovered Nkang’s mutilated frame in his area.
In July of the similar yr, a 54-year-old homicide suspect, Nkeruewen Etuk, confessed to the police how he beat his female friend to demise as a result of she allegedly burnt his meals and just about all set their area ablaze.
“When I asked her why she behaved that way, we started arguing, and then I beat her up. I never intended to kill her, unfortunately, our altercation escalated, resulting in her tragic demise when she slumped during the fight,” Etuk recounted.
From battering to femicide
Findings through Saturday PUNCH confirmed that home violence is continuously the primary installment that finally culminates in femicide.
“If I had not left that marriage, I would have died,” Olabisi, a home abuse survivor, instructed our correspondent. “The indicators had been all there proper from the beginning, however I interpreted them as love.
“He was once at all times jealous and possessive, at all times short of to grasp who was once calling me and why—even calculating the past and distance and wondering why I returned house past due from any time out.
“By the time we got married, this man began to hit me. At first, I rationalised that it was my fault and tried to obey his dictates. My pastor asked me to pray and fast for God to change his heart, but the abuse continued. One day, he showed me a knife and said he would kill me; the next day, I ran for my life.”
In an interview with Saturday PUNCH, a psychological fitness professional on the Federal Neuropsychiatric Medical institution, Calabar, Pass River Shape, Dr Victor Essien defined that batterers continuously disclose themselves via patterns of regulate, isolation, disproportionate fury, or even verbal and bodily aggression.
“Their behaviour would possibly manifest as over the top jealousy, inflexible authority, and unpredictable outbursts, continuously paired with mischievous emotional manipulation that regularly erodes a sufferer’s vanity.
“Early signs include isolating a partner from friends and family, constant surveillance of activities, and exaggerated reactions to minor conflicts. Recognising these red flags is critical for timely intervention.”
Release to reside
If the past due Olamide Alli—who expressed her reservations to her pals about her fiancé, Chris Ndukwe—had identified that her intestine instincts had been proper, she most likely could be alive lately.
In line with a WhatsApp accentuation message from 2018, Alli may well be heard telling considered one of her pals that her wedding ceremony to Ndukwe were scheduled for October of that yr. Then again, she admitted that she didn’t know the person enough quantity to be joined in wedlock with him.
The lady mentioned despite the fact that she had identified the 39-year-old for years and so they had two youngsters in combination, she didn’t need the 2 boys to be the one explanation why she was once getting married to him.
Because of her reluctance, the marriage was once reportedly suspense from October 2018 to August 2020.
Sadly, two months ahead of the marriage, Ndukwe murdered the 25-year-old in bitter blood and due to this fact took his personal era, depart in the back of their sons, elderly seven and 3.
In line with the police, at the night of June 21, 2020, their our bodies had been recovered from their Victory Landscape Property house in Lekki, Lagos.
Alli was once present in a lake of blood with deep cuts on her head, year the person’s mouth was once foaming with a whitish substance.
Resources mentioned the person join her up and lined her mouth with duct tape ahead of he proceeded to tug out her braids from the roots with a plier and stabbed her more than one occasions.
Dropping some brightness on what girls trapped in abusive relationships may do, the chairperson of the Nigeria Affiliation of Social Staff, Lagos Bankruptcy, Mrs Olubunmi Lamilisa, mentioned that survivors wish to discuss up and search aid ahead of it’s too past due.
“Victims must be willing to be helped,” she instructed Saturday PUNCH. “If the victim doesn’t report the abuse, a neighbour can always report. Now, we have agencies outside the Ministry of Youths and Social Development, and the Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency, which also has a response team. The state ministries also provide shelters and therapy for battered women.”
“There are also NGOs that help survivors. However, there needs to be more training for our law enforcement officers. Some women refuse to report the abuse. So, as social workers, we emphasise continuous advocacy and sensitisation for women at the grassroots to know that they need to leave abusive relationships.”
Essien additionally defined that ladies experiencing abuse wish to prioritise their protection.
“Documenting incidents meticulously can lend as important proof year creation a security plan—together with figuring out shield contacts and depart routes—trade in a strategic option to navigate risk.
“Seeking support from trusted friends, family, mental health professionals, or domestic violence services can provide both immediate relief and long-term protection. Early intervention not only empowers the individual but also disrupts the cycle of violence, creating a path toward safety and recovery,” the psychological fitness professional added.