From Tony Osauzo, Benin
Operatives of the Edo State Police Command have arrested Mr. Babalola, husband to Mrs. Toluige Olokoobi Babalola, for questioning, days after the news of the suicide of his wife went viral.
Mrs. Babalola was the woman identified in the ‘Mummy Calm Down’ video, which went viral in 2020 after her encounter with her then four-year old son, Oreofeoluwa Lawal-Babablola, when the little boy went theatrical while asking his mother to “calm down” before administering corporal punishment on him for the infraction of taking what he was not permitted to take.
The woman reportedly committed suicide in her Benin residence on Monday.
Confirming the arrest of the husband, spokesman of the Edo State Police Command, Mr. Chidi Nwabuzor, said Mrs. Babalola’s husband, who reported the matter to the police, had been taken into custody.
According to the police spokesman, Mr. Babalola reported at the Evbuotubu Police Station on Ekenwan road, Benin City, that when he returned from the market, he met his wife hung on a rope round her neck.
Mr. Babbalola was said to have raised alarm, which attracted his neighbours, who accompanied him to take the woman to the hospital, where she was confirmed dead, before her corpse was taken to the mortuary.
Nwabuzor told journalists that the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) in charge of Evbuotubu Police Station, queried the action of the deceased’s husband for not reporting to the police when he found his wife in the suicide position. He wondered why the husband chose self-help by taking the deceased to the hospital and mortuary without recourse to the police, which has the constitutional responsibility to investigate matters.
“The man is still with the police and would soon be transferred to the Command homicide section of the state CID for further investigation,” he said.