When an American scholar said “do not comit the crime that serves the sentence”, it’s possible Madam Favour Igiebor was not born into the world at that time. Favour Igiebor is just like every other Nigeria woman, who in some way, marriage has dealt some blows. Perhaps, her husband whom she vented her anger on his passport, contributed to her frustration and pain.
If Mrs Igiebor was seen at the airport nagging the life out of her husband like most women do, that will not attract any constitutional punishment. She would been tagged as another woman, frustrated with marriage. But like they say, ‘she allowed the village people’ fan her anger to the point where she had to tear her husband’s passport in the presence of Nigerian immigration officers.
According to a well meaning Nigerian who is following her new popularity on social media: “What a way to set oneself up, with full evidence for prosecution”. Now, the authorities are asking for her head, to serve as deterrent to others. Favour Igiebor made a statement recently, apologising and explaining the reasons she tore her husband’s passport in public.
The incident occurred on Saturday when Igiebor and her husband and children touched down in Nigeria from Italy. She said in a video which was uploaded on social media on Monday that she did it so her husband would be unable to travel abroad, adding that she was ready to face the consequences. “To Nigerian Immigration, I am very sorry, but to be sincere, I did it for my husband not to go back because I have seen so many things, I’ve gone through pains, pains that cause me heart pains today.
Pain that gives me a headache in the middle of my head. You don’t know what I’m passing through,” she said. Mrs Igiebor, a content creator, said her husband bought her an iPhone to please her after she threatened that he would not be able to travel when they get back to Nigeria.
“Out of anger, I told him that in Nigeria where we are going, you will not come back, but he looked at me and that was why he got me a phone as a gift, thinking everything is gone,” she said. The woman added that her critics do not know what she endures in her marriage. “If you have a way for you to invite the immigration police to come for me, they should come.
The law should come for me. No problem, I am ready to face anything,” she said. During the weekend, Mr Igiebor released a video and assured that he was willing to wash his family’s dirty linen in public if his wife wants it that way, adding that she will “get tired”.
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) said it has begun investigating the incident between the couple at the airport. “The Nigeria Immigration Service has launched a formal investigation following the circulation of a video on social media, showing a female traveler destroying a Nigerian Standard Passport at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos,” a statement on Sunday by the NIS read. According to the agency, the woman’s action could be a violation of Section 10(b) of the Immigration Act 2015 (as amended), which prohibits the willful destruction of Nigerian travel documents.
Even though the woman may be the victim, a simple act of showing anger at the wrong place and at the wrong time may make Favour Igiebor see the four walls of a prison cell..
