A man said to be in his 40s and identified as Nicodemus Nomyange on Saturday evening set himself and his girlfriend known as Shininenge Pam ablaze.
The incident happened at Inikpi Street in Makurdi, High Level, Makurdi, the capital city of Benue State.
An eyewitness said that the man had locked himself and the girlfriend indoors before setting the apartment on fire.
It was gathered that Nomyange decided to burn himself and his lover due to a misunderstanding arising from the lady’s refusal to marry him.
The eyewitness said that the lady and the man had been having a misunderstanding for some time now over marriage.
A neighbour, who gave her name as Dorris, said that the man had proposed marriage to the lady but she refused the proposal on the ground that the man was married and had children.
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This was said to have angered the man until last Saturday, and he decided to end it with the lady.
It was further gathered that the man had visited the lady with a keg of petroleum products and poured it on himself and his girlfriend before igniting a fire which burnt them, killing them.
According to an eye witness, it took the intervention of men of the fire department to prevent the fire from spreading to nearby apartments.
The State Police Public Relations Officer, DSP, Catherine Anene, who confirmed the report said that eyewitness told the police that they saw the man coming with fuel and they assumed that he wanted to use it for his generator.
Anene who said that the lovers have been having misunderstanding leading to the sad incident added that further investigation is ongoing to unravel the actual cause of the incident.
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