Security agents have launched manhunt for a yet-to-be named fugitive behind the brutal physical assault on his wife, after turning his home into a theater of war in Benin City, Edo State, buzzing social media Community.
The alleged abuser who fled his home when his neighbours raised alarm over his action, accuse his wife of mismanaged the N18,000 feeding budget he provided for a household of four for three days.
According to the survivor’s harrowing account in the viral video shared by Helen Ogechi Ogechukwu, the housewife, managed to stretch that meager sum N18,000 to cook actual food for three days.
Handing someone N18,000 budget to feed a family — including a one-year-old child and a grown man —for three days, is a magic trick, based on a reality check.
The survivor alleged in a video, “I spent part of the N18,000 to cook our food for three days. But, when he returned home, he said I wasted the money”.
While narrating her ordeal, the survivor in front of an a living apartment, bled in her two eyes, said, “I do not know where my mother’s sister lives in Benin”.
The dark skin mother thereafter displayed the bruises on her back, another young lady, wondered why the survivor who was caught using her shirt to clean blood stains from her buggy eyes, could not retaliated.
During the short conversation captured in a viral video another young woman and advocate against Gender Based Violence, threatened, “If I were the victim, I would stab him”.
The abandoned survivor, lamented that she does not have money to attend to urgent medical care, and feed her child believed to be a year old.
Three days! In this current economy, stretching that amount should earn her an honorary degree in forensic economics across markets in .
Instead, it earned her a barrage of blows from a father of three who apparently expected her to negotiate wholesale prices with food vendors in the spirit realm.
Viral commentary and street justice
standing outside their apartment with blood pooling in both eyes and bruises marking her back, the survivor painted a picture of utter abandonment.
She noted that she doesn’t even know where her aunt lives in Benin, has zero funds for urgent medical care, and is left stranded with a baby to feed.
Predictably, the internet-style street reaction, caught on camera offered a range of colorful, albeit chaotic, perspectives.
Another young woman in the same clip stared at the victim—who was busy using her own shirt to mop blood from her swollen eyes—and loudly wondered why she didn’t fight back.
The angry bystander chimed in with a fiery declaration: “If I were the victim, I would stab him”, while the survivor ditched call for her husband’s arrest.
The second bystander’s tactical approach might land her in a different kind of cell, the collective outrage is palpable, as concerned neighbours make plans to assist the survivor get medical support.
Nigerians seem to have officially reached a grim cultural intersection where economic hardship meets domestic tyranny, turning basic survival into a blood sport.
As the manhunt continues, one thing is abundantly clear: the only thing more tragic than the state of the economy is the fragile ego of a man who beats his wife over the price of a pot of soup.
