The crime of passion in Kano

THE recent gruesome murder of a certain Miss Ummakulsum Buhari Ummita in Kano, Kano State, has created palpable tension in the state. And only justice can calm the festering storm. The suspect, Geng Quarong, a Chinese national, had reportedly stormed the 23-year-old National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member’s residence at Janbulo Quarters in Kumbotso Local Government Area of the state and stabbed her to death in a fit of blind rage. Said the mother of the deceased: “He always came around wanting to see her but she refused to see him. This time around when he came, he kept knocking on the door for almost an hour. When I got fed up of him hitting the door loudly, I opened the door and he pushed me aside and started stabbing her with a knife. I started shouting and people came running. We rushed her to hospital but before we arrived there, she had died. It happened around 9.30pm. We were home with her two younger sisters. Her brother was out, and her father is dead. It was raining; people were indoors and couldn’t hear me shouting until someone came and tried going in through the window.”

She gave further insight into the relationship between the deceased and the suspect, saying their love affair had ended a long time before her gruesome murder. According to her, Quarong had sought to utilise the opportunity of Ummita’s divorce to get back into her life but she had stood her ground. When his visits became too persistent, she said, she decided to contact the police, but her children dissuaded her from that course of action, fearing negative publicity. Paradoxically, part of the reasons for the break-up of the deceased’s marriage was Quarong’s refusal to let her be. The bereaved mother then hinted at the genesis of the tragedy: “Of course, she told him that she was going to marry him, but because her paternal uncles saw issues coming, they refused and I agreed with them.”The suspect has since been arraigned in a magistrate’s court and remanded in prison custody.

This story is not only gory; it reflects the newfound tendency and proclivity by many to resolve conflicts by taking the law into their own hands. Spurning the due process, these individuals exact vengeance on their perceived enemies any way they choose. Full of righteous indignation, they affect whatever they desire, including self-executed death sentence, on the person(s) perceived to have wronged them. Surely, this barbaric tactic cannot be acceptable in a society that runs on the basis of strict laws and regulations and has prescribed processes for resolving conflicts.We expect that the processes of the law will be strictly adhered to and justice served in the case.

Beyond that, however, it is disturbing that increasingly in the Nigerian society, the old moral and ethical values that held society together are being jettisoned for peculiarly jejune reasons. People enter into relationships without exercising due diligence and properly assessing the character of those they choose to relate with. Yet the legal principle of caveat emptor cannot be overemphasised, particularly given that, as the Bard of Avon, William Shakespeare warned, there is no art to find the mind’s construction in the face. Certainly, it is a good hunch to put all suitors on the waiting list before making a definitive commitment to a relationship. Nigerians must shelve the practice of entering uncritically into relationships in order to guard against terrible outcomes. As this story illustrates, getting close to individuals given to violence and uncontrolled anger portends grave danger.

Besides, the easy access which the suspect apparently had to the victim also speaks to the defective parenting style that has become a major albatross of the Nigerian society today. Firmness, regardless of the cost to those involved in terms of criticism, has a real place in family and societal affairs. If the mother of the deceased had drawn firm lines in the sand and taken concrete steps to enforce her decision, for instance by informing her neighbours and law enforcement of the situation, there is no way the suspect would have persisted in raiding her residence at will. Besides, the violent and repulsive manner in which the deceased pushed her aside in order to gain access to her daughter demonstrates convincingly that he has absolutely no respect for the family. Apparently, the uncles who foresaw problems in the deceased’s proposed relationship with Quarong were completely right in their observations. Parents need to be firm and not give criminals access to their homes under any guise.

Still, nothing justifies murder: the suspect must carry the can. There is no better way to curtail lawlessness in the society than giving criminals their just deserts.

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