Truly, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. There is a very thin line between love and hate, and it takes a simple nudge to go over it.
Ada Ocha Ntu, better known as 'Esther Johnson' met and fell in love with Mark Hall, a British railway worker, what we call 'expatriate' these days but back then in the colonial era, they were simply known as colonial worker.
22 year old Ada thought she had found love with Mark, giving her all to him, even going as far as lending him a whopping sum of £400 before he left to England for his home leave in Britain.
Everything came crashing down in 1953 when Hall returned from the leave and told her the unthinkable.
Her heart throb, Mark had gone and married a British bride (Ada was obviously the side chick). Perhaps if that was all she would have been able to bear it to an extent, but no, to bring matters to a head, he had used the money she lent him to buy his new bride a taxi cab so that she could start her own business.
That is the worst kind of 'maga-ism' a woman can suffer. Not only are you the side chick, bae also used your money to love-vendor the main chick.
Ada lost it.
Using a pair of scissors, she savagely attacked Hall and stabbed him to death. Women can do wonders with a pair of household implement and Ada used it to full measure.
She was arrested, tried and, in 1956, convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death.
Ada remained on 'Death row' in Broad Street Prison (now Freedom Park) Lagos until her sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment.
In 1961, on the first anniversary of Nigeria's independence, perhaps recognising that her crime was a crime of passion', Governor-General Nnamdi Azikiwe pardoned Ada 'Esther Johnson' Ntu "in the name of the Queen."
The press celebrated the decision, and Johnson was released from jail.
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