In something akin to a movie or a novel, or a story from a faraway land, a policeman drove to the school where his girlfriend dropped her three-year-old son, Desmond, shot her and shot himself.
Yes, it happened in Nigeria, in Ilorin, Kwara State last Thursday. According to the story, Olalere Michael, a 40-year-old mobile police sergeant, committed suicide after shooting his girlfriend, Bamidele Cecelia Oluwatosin to death on the premises of a private school located on Agba Dam Housing Estate, Gaa Akanbi, in the Ilorin area of Kwara State.
He was attached to the Kwara State Government House while she was a cleaner at the Banquet Hall opposite Government House.
They had a misunderstanding; she ran away when he attempted to attack her, he then went to her family house with a cutlass to attack her.
He trailed her and shot her dead on the school premises with an AK-47 gun. He then shot himself dead.
What could have triggered this type of reaction, what is worth this type of behaviour, leaving pains and sadness behind?
Well, some say Oluwatosin who was in her 30s wanted to end the relationship as the father of her son was coming back from Dublin after being there for a year.
In other words she was living a double life, she deceived him. He probably spent money on her, but she was put in a tight corner by the impending return of the father of her son, who might have been led to believe that she was waiting for him and was ready to marry him.
But sadly the clean break she might have envisaged was not to be. It led to her tragic end.
It is scary that men authorised to carry arms use them to settle scores, killing themselves as well to avoid justice. This must worry the police and other security agencies where they may review their recruitment criteria, but then who really knows what goes on in another human being’s mind, what could flip an outwardly calm person to commit murder?
Women should learn not to take men for granted, as some do, thinking that they could take the men’s money then dump them at will.
In fact some parents encourage this just to get as much money and other gifts as possible, knowing that their daughters would not marry the men.
As for Olalere Michael, he was a married man who got carried away at the expense of his family. What type of love was it that he could not have entertained the possibility of her not being with him forever?
If his religion permits he could have married her, if however his religion doesn’t allow polygamy, then he couldn’t imagine her to be his girlfriend for the rest of her life.
By killing himself because of her, he had brought shame and stigma to his family. He hurt his wife beyond anything imaginable, not only her husband had a mistress; he chose to pay the supreme price and leave her and their bewildered children.
He disregarded how they would fend for themselves; feeding, school fees and so on just for revenge.
Men that neglect their family and get engrossed with other women should also learn from this unfortunate incident, and ask themselves the all important question: Is it worth it?
Some may even leave their family for girlfriends, but they learn the hard way as it hardly ends well. By then it may be too late to go back to the family since they have eroded the trust needed between spouses and even among family members. When the children are suspicious of the father or look down on him, the family will never be the same again.
In any case, for some if they were to marry the ‘other woman’ the ‘thrill’ of the chase and deception would be over and they would go in search of another one.
Many things are wrong with our society if such a thing happens and some may take a cue from it and do it, but it shouldn’t have a place in our society. Even in the faraway lands where these atrocities happen a lot, people there are shocked and could not come to terms with it.
