Raised Concerns As More Us-based Nigerians Murder Their Spouses

Few hours before New Year of 2007, Kelechi Charles Emeruwa ambushed his estranged wife, Chidiebere Omenihu Ochulo at her home in a manicured Maryland suburb, armed with a kitchen knife. Emeruwa sliced and stabbed Chidiebere several times until she collapsed and died. Chidiebere, a registered nurse died at 36, leaving behind a raging estranged husband and three children. Chidiebere, was found dead on January 2, 2007. Days later, Emeruwa, then 46, was captured and charged with her murder. Today, he sits in a Maryland penitentiary serving life sentence for fatally stabbing his estranged wife to death. This killing is just one amongst several horrible stories of Nigerian husbands that had gruesomely murdered their wives within the past 10 years in America. These women were either registered nurses or professionals in the medical field. Between 2006 and 2014, more than 50 Nigerian husbands murdered their wives in what might be considered crimes of passion as a result of alienation of affection, women empowerment, emasculation, and loss of self esteem. But are these enough reasons to slay their wives or are these ego trips because they were no longer the proverbial "bread winners of the family?" It is strange and difficult to determine the cold killings as most husbands awaiting trials remained mute. During trials, plea bargains were usually negotiated which led to sentencing of several years in jail or life terms in place of death sentences. In the case of David and Priscilla Ochola of Hennepin, Minnesota, the killer- husband, during a call to the police confessed to killing his wife because he was tired of being disrespected. On a cold January day in Minnesota, arguments ensued between David and his wife Priscilla: David, enraged during the argument, dashed into his bedroom, fetched his gun and fatally shot his wife. He called the police and explained thus: "Yes I have killed the woman that messed up my life; the woman that has destroyed me. I am at Shalom West. My name is David and I am all yours." Priscilla Ochola was a 28-year-old registered nurse. The 50-year old husband allegedly told authorities that he was tired of being "disrespected" by his wife. He married Priscilla in Nigeria, relocated her to United States and sponsored her nursing education. The couple had two children. In an early morning altercation on March 22, 2014, Mr. Martin Ebegbodi, 63 fatally shot his wife Isioma Ebegbodi, a 36-year-old medical doctor, in their sprawling Harris County home in Texas. After killing his wife, Martin went to a neighbour's house and asked him to call the police. When deputies arrived, Martin was arrested and charged with the murder of his wife. The couple got married in 2005. Two days after Christmas of 2013, Babatope Owoseni, a Nigerian resident in East Orange, New Jersey, violently subdued his pregnant Senegalese wife in the bath tub of their apartment and strangled her to death. Babatope by early 2014 was charged with double murder. These are some of the most chilling reports of gruesome killing of Nigerian registered nurses and women in the medical profession by their Nigerian husbands in United States of America. Mrs. Felicia Harrison, a registered nurse in Southern United States reasoned that the killings of these women by their husbands might be related to the stress of the profession, especially from the women who were stressed because of the responsibility they assumed as sometimes bread winners of the family. The stress affected their relationships at home with their husbands. Stress from work may be a contributing factor to domestic quarrels that ensued at home. Nursing profession is stressful, though financially rewarding, immigrants face social and psychological stresses additionally because, according to Harrison, "being a foreigner, it is, difficult for you in terms of communication and accent among co-workers, patients, family members and others in the interdisciplinary healthcare field. You find out that you are not as fast as the demand requires, on chores as the citizens are. You really have to do more by working harder to prove yourself. Often times, there is nothing that you do that pleases the patient because you are a foreigner; you face lots of limitations in moving up the clinical ladder and restrictions in terms of positions. Not to talk of bullying, racism, discrimination, envy. A lot of the stress we carry home and when we get to our homes, most Nigerian men feel that since their wives are nurses, they don't need to work again. They become lazy and wait for the woman to work, be a mother to the children, and still open legs for them to chop dried onugbu. There is no money in nursing except you work plenty overtime hours. Jebose, some buy big houses on mortgage with the hope that since the woman don become nurse, money go full everywhere. Honestly, those wey kill their wives na because of greed and laziness. Why can't the men go and study nursing and leave the woman alone? It's not easy; I work in the Heart Center and it's very stressful." Despite the sad end of these nurses, American nursing profession continues to witness a surge of immigrant entrants into the profession. Mrs. Princess Ekeoma Eronini-Ahanonu, a Philadelphia-based nurse, says, "I come from a family of nurses and doctors. My mother retired as a nurse and my brother is a medical doctor. Nursing is a challenging profession. I have had good and bad experiences especially in relating with my co-workers. Some of my good experiences were working together as a team to ensure the well being of my patients and the worst is being reminded that I have an accent. I had just graduated from the University of Port Harcourt as a Linguist in Foreign Languages before my sojourn to the United States of America. A lot of people go into nursing in America for various reasons. Some of these reasons are flexibility, pay and freedom of choice. The profession pays well if you work hard. I do not regret being a nurse in America because it has given me the opportunity to understand the world better. It is, though not a bed of roses. It is the survival of the fittest." Harrison and Eronini-Ahanonu agreed that regardless of the stress and challenges of the nursing profession, it has been able to stabilise and enrich most practitioners and their families in such unique ways. It has also brought about sad situations such as losing dear loved ones, killed by their spouses. "Jebose, I chose to go into nursing profession as a stepping stone upon my arrival from Nigeria to United States because it was the only profession I was able to get a job. When my family and I relocated to United States as legal aliens and precisely Raleigh, North Carolina, two weeks after getting our legal documents; I began to search for the same kind of work I was doing while in University of Jos, Nigeria. I filled out lots of job applications to various universities within and outside North Carolina without a success. One of my brothers-in-law advised me to go into nursing because it would be much easier to get a job in nursing field faster than any other profession for foreigners. And it worked out as soon as I got certified, then. "In terms of positive experience, it has been very rewarding and worthwhile."