Why I tried to murder my mother
Posted To The Web: Saturday, January 16, 2010 - Seun Joseph

Strong indications have emerged from medical doctors and pastors on the proper mental health of a 27-year-old jobless graduate who attempted to slash open the throat of his 50-year-old mother on the allegation that she possessed witchcraft. There is a consensus that the man may be mentally ill due to stress and other social factors.

It will be recalled that the young man simply identified as Nnamdi Mokoye made frantic efforts to murder his mother based on the prophecy and revelation of his church pastor that his mother who divorced his father 21 years ago is the evil architect of all the unexplainable series of woes and calamities that his family has been experiencing for years, which had hitherto defied remedy till date.

However, a few hours to the New Year, he reasoned within himself that it would be suicidal to start the year 2010 in the same harrowing condition he had been facing. Hence, he set out from the house of one of his friends whom he had been staying with to Ajangbadi-Sibiri, Okokomaiko, an outskirt of Ojo Local Government of Lagos State to confirm from his mother why she intentionally bewitched all her children including him to the point that all her seven children are wallowing in peculiar calamities, six out of her seven children are jobless while the only one who is gainfully employed has no settled home as her husband threw her out of his house without any known cause despite all entreaties from family members.

One thing led to the other, and before neighbours could get wind of what was happening, Mrs Abigail Nwaje, Nnamdi’s mother, had already been brutally butchered having been mercilessly lacerated on the throat with all her teeth pulled out with a hammer. The suspect who has been charged to court for attempted murder revealed to reporters at the information unit of the Lagos State police command why he was bent on murdering his mother a few hours to 2010.

Nnamdi, who was finding it difficult to utter words, stated that having experienced frustration, agony and unexplainable ill-luck for almost three decades, he started going to ‘churches for deliverance’ and it was in the process that he and his older sister who was sent packing out of her matrimonial home by her husband for no just cause were told that their mother was the brain behind their suffering and hardship.

Reacting to the strange behaviour of the young man, Dr Kalu Isaiah of the Department of Psychiatry, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) maintained that there is a big probability that Nnamdi is suffering from mental illness.

According to Kalu, “Merely raising hands to beat one’s mother is bad enough, and for one to have taken a knife and slashed one’s mother’s throat shows that the person is mentally ill or was mentally ill at the time he committed the offence. There is something we call delusion in psychiatry, which is a false fixed belief.

“The young man would have been convinced beyond reasonable doubt that his mother was behind his retarded progress and that of his siblings too. That act in essence defies logic and reality. It is beyond the boundary of normal behaviour. There is likelihood that the young man is suffering from paranoid delusion. “Believing strongly that somebody is against him and wants to harm him. It happens, but people don’t do such things. Ordinarily, what happens is that people may not talk to the person again or abandon the person,” he said.

On factors that might have generated into mental illness for the jobless graduate, Kalu revealed that there are a lot of things that could have resulted into mental illness for a jobless graduate. He also opined that it could be hereditary. “There could be a form of genetic disposition transferred from parents to the offspring. That does not mean that anyone whose parents have that must compulsorily also have it,” he said.

Speaking on the danger signals to look out for in mental illnesses, Kalu who also doubles as a registrar stated that, “The problem must have been going on for long without anybody doing anything about it”. The psychiatric doctor who has been dealing with mental cases for years also said that, “There is a limit to what people can cope with. Anything beyond that level could be suicidal. A lot have mental illnesses and they don’t know while some others may know that something unusual is going on with them; when you have stressors, when you are overburdened by situations, the person may lose touch with reality. He or she may be hearing things that are not audible to other people and some may be saying things that are incoherent.

Pastor Oluwasegun of the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministry, Igando branch, speaking on the ugly development, corroborated what Dr Kalu said that no pastor would have told the young man to go and kill his mother for any reason. According to him, witchcraft is an evil spirit which one can be delivered from.

“It is very unbelievable in this age to hear such a thing, especially from a well-educated young man. Nnamdi Mokoye’s revelation that he was told severally by his pastor that his mother is the evil architect of all the unexplainable series of woes and calamities that his family has been experiencing for years which had defied remedy till date is highly questionable,” he said.

Speaking out their minds on the prevalent economic conditions of the Nigerian society whereby many graduates are walking the streets jobless, Pastor Oluwasegun and Dr Kalu advised Nigerians to always believe that there is hope as long as someone is still alive. “For people in the larger society, it is not good to think that there is no more hope. You should always have hope and believe that your condition will change. Personally, I don’t believe the boy was brainwashed to do such a thing, but it is possible that he was under the influence of alcohol or hard drugs.

“According to the jobless graduate who has not been able to get a decent job offer as a certified accountant since he left the university in 1996 despite all human and spiritual undertakings, he was pushed by forces beyond his control. So it is not enough to just say that he was brainwashed by his pastor to commit such a devilish act,” Pastor Oluwasegun said without mincing words.

Furthermore, the Lagos State Police Command spokesman, Frank Mba, revealed that the suspect has already been charged to court for attempted murder and that his mother is responding well to treatment at the hospital.

Mokoye’s is the second case of attempted murder bordering on witchcraft allegation since last year in Lagos. One Olubukola in a similar vein murdered her mother mid-last year because she alleged that the latter was a witch who was behind all her woes in the United States of America.

http://news.onlinenigeria.com/templates/?a=13255&z=10

shocking