IT has more or less become a weekly ritual for us to run an editorial on one form of atrocity and bizarre conduct or the other between and amongst citizens in the country. If it is not about an insane husband shattering the forearm of his wife with gunshots over her delay to prepare his food, it is about an employer torturing her staffer to death over her inability to account for N17,500 in the day’s sales, even after refunding the missing money. There have been a lot more. The incidents are as freaky and horrendous as they come. Another one on the front burner now is that of a squatter who allegedly tied up the good Samaritan who accommodated her and her two daughters before setting them ablaze over a civil disagreement!
The sordid narrative is that the prime suspect in the dastardly act, one Nnaemaka Nwosu, became homeless following her divorce, and while searching for accommodation, the victim, a policewoman, decided to shelter her. They reportedly had a disagreement along the line and, in the course of a physical fight, Nwosu allegedly hit the policewoman’s head with a pestle and she became unconscious. Curiously, the suspect was not done as she went further to bind the policewoman and her daughters’ arms and set them ablaze! It is really pathetic that this happened between two adults whose relationship commenced on a worthy note that underscores the significance of citizens being their brother’s keepers.
This hideous incident raises quite a few question. Was the policewoman friends with the suspect before electing to accommodate her? If not, how robust was her knowledge of the suspect, through background checks, before agreeing to shelter her? What kind of disagreement between a benefactor and a beneficiary could have culminated in a physical fight during which the beneficiary hit her benefactor’s head with a pestle? Was it a case of betrayal and revenge? Why did the suspect add her benefactor’s two daughters to the list of victims of her plain murder? The suspect bound the hands of her victims before setting them ablaze, so that they would not have any opportunity to escape from the ensuing inferno. How cruel can people get? Why did she even think of setting the victims ablaze in the first place? Regardless of the answers to the foregoing posers, the fact remains that no citizen has the right to take the law into his/her own hands, no matter the level of the (real or perceived) provocation.
It is yet unclear exactly what Nwosu wanted to achieve by not just killing her benefactors but also getting them burnt. Whatever her motive was, the level of callousness and inhumanity she deployed is simply awful and must have sprung from the pit of hell. Or what kind of human being would contemplate and carry out such unspeakable acts on her foes, let alone those who had been her benefactors until that point? Nwosu and her ilk are the kind of ingrates who make giving a hand to those in need a complicated decision for many.
It is really disturbing to see the kind of society that is evolving with the burgeoning rank of malefactors who are totally bereft of decency, decorum and respect for the sacredness of human life. Every decent citizen should be aghast at the descent of many Nigerians into gross inhumanity with their readiness to unleash terror and death, and even gory death, on other humans. This should be concerning to everyone, including the government and citizens, as it indicates not just the continuing absence of values and ethos but a gradual collapse of community and society. A society can only gloss over this kind of egregious crime and ghoulish action at its own peril. The government must act, and do so swiftly, to assure citizens of the preeminence of the rule of law as a guide in the conduct of their affairs.
Leaderships at all levels must also rise up to be counted in triggering value reorientation and moral rearmament in the society. The current level of decadence is simply intolerable and unacceptable. There could be a need to subject Nnaemaka Nwosu to a psychiatric test to determine the stability of her mind because her action actually points in the direction of someone who has lost the control of her mental faculties. If proven to be of sound mind, he must not escape the full wrath of the law for her wickedness.
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