Families and relations of a Lagos-based Ngerian drycleaner are now at a loss as to what might have come over their son, Henry Nnamdi, who two Sundays ago killed his one-year-old son before using a hot iron to burn the grieving wife, thereby putting her life in great danger.mily members, friends
When Mercy Nnamdi was joined in holy matrimony with her husband, Henry, in December 2010, she had her hopes that she would get the best out of the wedlock, like any other woman. She had every reason to be happy with herself and her husband, when barely a year later, she was blessed with a bouncing baby boy; she named Ebuka, meaning God is Almighty.
Bu the marriage, which started blissfully, has since turned sour, giving her reasons to regret marrying Henry. Of all the atrocities meted out to her by her husband, none could be as devastating and gruesome as the blow she was dealt with by the man on Sunday, April 8, 2012.
On that fateful day she was in her residence at No. 3 Lambe Street, Ago-Palace Way, Isolo, Lagos when the husband appeared from the blues and accused her of committing a crime for which she must be punished.
Henry, who accused her wife of having been sleeping with his father, said she would pay for the crime even though there was no evidence whatsoever to prove the allegation.
Unknown to the wife that the 39-year-old Henry had concluded plans to decimate her, she went ahead to prepare the evening meal for the husband and was waiting for him to eat the meal when he decided to descend mercilessly on her.
Armed with working tools- a hot iron and screwdriver, Henry pressed on the wife’s flesh and used the screwdriver to scatter the body into shreds while she was sleeping.
“All of a sudden I began to feel a burning sensation around my chest as the hot iron my husband had placed on me was burning and tearing my body apart.”
“As the hot iron was tearing my body apart, Henry used the screwdriver to peel it further thereby increasing the pains inflicted on me,” she lamented.
She said despite her cries for help, her neigbours did not come to her aid, apparently afraid that my husband could also attack them in the process of coming to my aid.
Just as he was torturing her as a captured rebel soldier, the mad husband was asking her angrily, how many times did you sleep with my father?, a question she could not even mutter a response, having never slept with the old man.
As the pains inflicted on her was getting too devastating and debilitating, she made attempt to shout harder for help from neighbours but he sternly warned her not to try that option as his gang of hired assassins was waiting outside to devour her should she made noise to attract any intruder.
“He threatened me not to shout, pointing out that his gang was outside and ready to kill me and use my body to make money since the time for him to buy a car had come.
“When I defied him and shouted for help, he quickly seized our son, Ebuka and dragged him outside to where his killer gang had been waiting.
“I then summoned all the strength in me and dashed outside naked and hid my battered and pain-riddled body in the kitchen but my son was nowhere to be found. I saw two men at the door and they gave me a wrapper to cover myself.
By this time, one of my neighbours had become bold enough to come close to our apartment and raised the alarm that my husband had murdered his son.
“Henry used a big stick to hit the baby several times on his fragile shoulder and the young boy died instantly. That was the nightmare I experienced on that day”, she narrated.
By daybreak, Mercy had been thrown into an incalculable tragedy: her only child had been brutally murdered by the man she married, her body seriously disfigured and her life put in harm’s way for no justifiable reason.
Her world collapsed and her hope and confidence in life badly shattered.
With the only son gone and her body reduced to rubble, she was even more worried about her ability to survive the level of brutality visited on her by her husband-turned attacker.
A doctor with the New Evolution Hospital, who attended to her, said that she was on the danger list and needed serious medical attention if she must survive.
The doctor added that she fainted several times last Tuesday because her siblings did not bring food to her due to lack of money to do so. The doctor said, “After the husband had beaten her thoroughly and she fell into coma, he used pliers and decimated her. Then a hot iron was applied on her face, body, chest and her two breasts.
“She has a 3rd degree burns. By the time she was rushed to the hospital, she had lost a lot of body fluid that she had entered acute renal failure because I observed that she did not pass any urine for almost 24 hours. The management acted fast to help her situation even with no initial payment,” the doctor explained.
As she was battling to come back to life, no one had the courage to tell her that her son had since died and the corpse taken away, apparently to prevent her from collapsing again.
Mercy, who met Henry in 1996 before they married in 2010, had never enjoyed the so-called marriage for the short period they stayed together because they were always quarrelling and neighbours knew them for that.
But how soon the police will resolve the matter will neither remove the deadly scars on Mercy’s body nor bring back her only son, Ebuka, and her agony reigns supreme, as the days go by.