Imam kills wife after quarrel with rival and sister

A woman has died after her husband angrily swat her with a wooden object at Botingli, a village in Mion district of the Northern region.

The incident has been hidden away from the police with attempts made to close tracks of the tragedy and shield the killer.

Ayishetu, 40, died Monday at the Tamale Teaching Hospital a week after her estranged husband, Imam of the community, Afa Tijani fatally bludgeoned her into coma following a matrimonial misunderstanding.

Worried residents who spoke to Kasapa News and asked not to be named said Afa Tijani married a second wife and strained relationship with the deceased who had aggressively objected and tried to block the second marriage.

Since the marriage, sporadic confusions and altercations between the rivals kept increasing and the husband, typically of a northerner spontaneously picked sides supporting his new wife and condemning the old, accusing her of causing the provocations.

The deceased also had frosty relationship with a female sibling of her husband who was staying in the same house.

Close relatives of the deceased also told Kasapa News the situation worsen after she noticed her husband grew more irritable towards her and decided to divorce him.

She was however persuaded not to walk out by some senior family folks and other authorities in the village. The deceased was a mother of six and in northern settlement, it is believed a woman who runs away from her matrimonial home ruins destiny of her children.

Locals who witnessed how Ayishetu suffered her fatal injury said a renewed quarrel broke out last week between the rivals over still unclear cause and the husband dashed out from room and hit her with a stick.

According to them the woman was bundled inside her room and abandoned to battle for her life in pains.

The reports added that a daughter of the woman visited her last Sunday and discovered her mother had badly been injured in the deadly assault by her father. There was blood stains on her nose and mouth.

The daughter then rushed her to the Tamale Teaching Hospital where she was confirmed dead in the course of receiving treatment. She was said to have died from excessive internal bleeding, although, hospital sources yet to respond to request for confirmation.

However, there is currently strenuous efforts by the villagers to conceal the crime and secure the offender from facing the law because he is an Imam.

A villager who hinted the plot said residents were forbidden to discuss the incident with outsiders. The source explained anybody who will leak information about the incident will be regarded as a betraying the celebrated Imam and would be punished.

He said a delegation from Tamale immediately the woman was pronounced dead on Monday stormed the village to plead with the family not to file a complaint with the police.

It is unclear the composition of the delegation and details of how they influenced the case is also scanty but Kasapa News learnt they suggested change of the burial ground.

There was also tension in the area as family of the murdered woman threatened to exact revenge by killing their in-law, the source observed.

The woman was finally buried at Chenzene a village near Tamale, several distance away from where she was killed a move seen as attempts to outsmart investigators