Salami Anedu, 21, was detained by the police in Edo State for reportedly killing his wife, Esther Friday, 21, after an argument over food.
Along with other suspects detained for various crimes in the state, the suspect was paraded by the Edo State Police Command.
Anedu was taken into custody by men from the Fugar Police Division on August 30, according to SP Chidi Nwabuzor, the state police public relations officer.
He claimed that during an argument at their home in the Ugbekpe neighborhood, Anedu killed his wife with a stick, which one Aluaye Momoh allegedly reported to the police.
According to Nwabuzor, the police stormed the scene and detained the suspect before transferring the body to the mortuary at Fugar General Hospital.
He said that the matter was given to the State Criminal Investigation Department of Benin’s Homicide Section for review.
While denying killing his wife in a press conference, the suspect said they had a fight about food.
She made the rice and told me not to eat any of it, the man remarked. She told me I couldn’t consume the meal when I tried to make yam and an egg on my own. She started arguing with me while I was still eating the food and threatened to bring her brothers over to beat me up.
I believed she was joking. She then returned with two of her brothers, who were carrying sticks, and they began to fight me. After the argument, my wife spent the night at my mother’s house, so I was shocked when vigilantes arrived to arrest me and claimed that I had killed my wife.
I didn’t kill my wife, and I didn’t beat her with a piece of wood. Her brothers were the ones who brought wood to my house, but they accused me of killing her since I dragged along with them. Before, my wife was ill.