'I wanted to kill myself' - Vocal coach Freeman recounts

Voice coach Freeman Daniel Ame, popularly known as Coach Freeman, has disclosed that he wanted to take his life after his entire family was wiped out by an Islamic group in a brutal attack that destroyed their home.

In an interview with Kafui Dey that aired on March 2, 2026, Coach Freeman said he had never suffered until he lost his family and everything in an instant, recounting how assailants set his home ablaze while his family was inside, leaving him as the sole survivor.

“At some point, I wanted to die, and it wasn’t happening. I wanted to kill myself because everything was tragic. I never really suffered until I lost everything. One moment, you have everything, and the next moment, you have nothing,” he said.

When asked whether authorities ever found the people who committed the murder, he expressed frustration, noting that even individuals who kidnap children in Nigeria are not arrested, and that reality traumatise him.

'Everybody was killed except me' – Coach Freeman recounts family's fiery massacre

“The people who are kidnapping children now… it’s those things that traumatise me. I try not to listen to it in the news,” he noted.

Coach Freeman further indicated that although time has helped him heal, certain things still trigger the pain, making it feel as though his family was murdered just yesterday.

He admitted that closure has been difficult, but said he found some comfort in unexpected encounters with strangers who shared prophetic messages about him and his late family.

“It took a while to heal. At some point, certain things trigger the pain, and it feels like it just happened yesterday. You feel like you don’t have closure. Most of my closure came from people who didn’t know anything about me and suddenly told me prophetic things,” Freeman said.

He also shared how he copes with questions about his family. According to him, he often tells people that his family lives abroad and that he was the prodigal son who was left behind.

“I tell them I’m the black sheep of the family. They live abroad. Especially when I started teaching, that was where I got my first accommodation. During holidays, everybody travelled home except me. They would ask why, and I’d say my family lives abroad and, as the black sheep of the family, they abandoned me here to learn my lesson,” he added.

Coach Freeman disclosed that his entire family was burnt alive during an attack allegedly carried out by an Islamic group. He was about 15 years old at the time of the incident, when their house was set ablaze while his parents were trapped inside.

“There was this attack, and my family was affected. Everybody was killed except me. It was a wipeout. Not only that, but our house was set ablaze and burned. That’s a story I still don’t fully understand,” he recalled.

Watch the interview below:

“At some point I wanted to kill myself, it wasn’t happening, I wanted to die” - Freeman Daniel Ame recounts how he felt after his entire family was murdered

Full video here https://t.co/XlZfl8SnnR#KafuiDeyInterviews pic.twitter.com/NDN0JIuDlb

— Kafui Dey (@KafuiDey) March 3, 2026