Woman sets self, hubby ablaze

According to a report by Sun News, a woman in Imo state set herself, her husband and their home ablaze after finding out that her husband of 12 years was planning to get rid of her because she was barren, and bring in another woman who already had two children for him and pregnant for the 3rd child. Read the full story from Sun below...


They died together - by fire. The house they both shared as man and wife is also in ruins, burnt to the ground. As at the time of writing this report, the charred body of the woman lay morbidly in the midst of the debris. Approaching the burnt building, certain eerie feeling hits with a good impact. The man, who was saved from dying with his wife inside the fire, died on the way to hospital. “You can say both of them died together,” observed a shocked, grieving neighbor.

The puzzle now is not just that the couple, Patience and Monday Chilaekezie died by fire. To the Umuodu community in Ezinihitte Local Government Area of Imo State, it is that they can hardly understand why Patience could have been so incensed and callous to the extent of setting herself and her husband on fire.
Chidinma, Monday’s younger sister’s accounts of events leading to the tragic end, indicate that Patience had carefully planned it all. According to her, Patience had been grieving that her husband of 12 years had decided to send her away. It was learnt that the couple had married for that long without children. As Chidinma said, her brother had made up his mind to bring in another woman within the community who was pregnant for him.

It was said that Patience, a petty trader, had lured her husband into their house, poured petrol on both of them and then set the house on fire. It was also said that while they and the house were burning, she held fast onto her husband to ensure that he did not escape the inferno.

Saturday Sun gathered that neighbours, who noticed the flame and heard the cry for help, were able to rescue the man who later died on his way to the hospital. Community members, who rushed to see Patience’s charred body when the fire had burnt out, were gripped by fear and horror.

Chidinma further told Saturday Sun that her brother was able to run out from the inferno alive but died 20 minutes later on the way as they were rushing him to hospital.

In tears, she recalled that on the day of the incident, being January 11, 2014, her brother, who was an automobile technician, had gone to his shop as he did every day. His wife, popularly known as Madam Oil, had also left the house for her shop at a local market. However, a few hours later, she came back to the house. She was said to have been seen with a keg that, in the instance, could be containing petrol, with which she later sprinkled round the house.