A 45-year-old man, identified as Christopher, has been arrested by the police in Edo state for allegedly beaten his wife to death for refusing to offer him N2,000 loan.
The spokesperson of the state police command, Bello Kotongs, said the incident happened on Saturday night at No. 1, Agbontaen Street beside Ebvareke Secondary School, off Agboniro Street, Uselu, Benin, the Edo State capital.
He said the “suspect asked his wife to loan him some money (N2,000) out of the money she made at a burial she earlier attended on Saturday. When she refused, he then beat her to death.”
Kotongs said the suspect had been detained at the Textile Mill Police Station, Benin from where he would be transferred on Monday to Edo Police Headquarters at the Government Reservation Area (GRA) for further investigation.
However, one of the deceased chidren, identified as Augustine, told journalists that his father had tried to escape from the room- and-parlour apartment they lived in after killing his mother, but was apprehended and handed over to the police.
He said his father works for a waste disposal company in Benin City, and had been beatin his mother, a businesswoman, at the slightest provocation.
Augustine narrated that his father had called his mother on phone to demand N2, 000 loan and started beating the deceased as he returned home around 9 pm when the money was not quickly given to him.
“I tried to give my mother paracetamol and drinking water after the initial beating but my father threw them away,” he said.
“She then went to bathe after which she lied down outside to rest a little before coming inside to sleep but my father locked us inside the room and resumed the beating of my weak mother outside.
“Neighbours later helped us (the three children) to open the door, only to see our dead mother on the ground. She was then rushed to two different hospitals in the neighbourhood where she was confirmed dead.”
The police spokesperson said the corpse of the deceased has been deposited in a morgue in Benin.
