My wife was beaten to death not beheaded

The husband to the late Bridget Agbahiwe, who was killed in Kano by suspected Musloim fanatics for alleged blasphemy, Pastor Mike Agbahiwe, yesterday relived how his wife was beaten to death in his presence, The Nation Reports. Agbahiwe, an indigene of Orodo in Mbaitoli Local Government of Imo State, visited Governor Rochas Okorocha at the Government House in Owerri, the state capital, in company of his relatives.

The distraught husband said his wife was not beheaded, as widely reported in the media.

He said the late Bridget was killed in his presence, while he escaped death by the whiskers.

Agbahiwe said the attackers were out to kill him and his wife.

He said: “One Muslim, identified simply as Dauda, came to my wife’s shop and was washing his leg in front of the shop. My wife told the man to move up a little so that she could arrange her goods, but the man refused. Instead, the man started to molest her. He gripped her in the neck. As she tried to free herself from the grip, Dauda started shouting Allahu Akba! A mob quickly gathered.

“When we saw that danger was about to occur, we ran and took refuge in the home of a prominent Alhaji, who is a leader in the area. The Alhaji did all he could to calm the mob down. They refused and called him an infidel. The mob broke into his house and killed my wife in front of me. If not for the quick intervention of the police, who immediately used teargas to disperse them, they would have also killed me. But they destroyed everything I had: the shop, the car and so on.

“My wife was never beheaded. But the hitting was on her head and it was with hard objects. The body of my wife is in the mortuary with the head. She was not beheaded as it was widely reported.”

Okorocha described Bridget’s killing as “highly provocative, barbaric and the highest wickedness of mankind”.

The governor said the state government shared with the Agbahiwe family its moment of grief.

He said: “The problem is not the death of Mrs. Agbahiwe but the manner in which she was killed. In this country, we must learn to live peacefully. No religion supports killing. Anyone who kills in the name of a religion is an evil worshipper and should never mention the name of God. The cold-blooded killing of Mrs. Agbahiwe should be seen as a sacrifice for the unity of the country. She died as a martyr.