An Epidemic: Nigerian Men Killing Their Nurse Wives In The United States

By Abiodun Ladepo

"Yes I have killed the woman that messed up my life; the woman that has destroyed me. I am at Shalom West. My name is David and I am all yours.”

Those were David Ochola’s words during his 911 (U.S. Emergency Number) call to authorities after shooting dead his 28 years old wife, Priscilla Ochola, in Hennepin, Minnesota. The 50-years old husband was tired of being “disrespected” by his wife, a Registered Nurse (RN) whom he had brought from Nigeria and sponsored through nursing school only to have her make much more than him in salary - a situation which led to Mrs. Ochola “coming and going as she chose without regard for her husband.”  The couple had two children – four years old boy and a three years old girl.  

*Some Nigerian Nurses In The US

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In Texas, Babajide Okeowo had been separated from his wife, Funke Okeowo, with whom he resided at their Dallas home.  Upon the divorce, the husband lost the house to his wife, along with most of the contents therein, as is usually the tradition in U.S. divorces where the couple still has underage children.  Mr. Okeowo, 48, divorced his wife because not long after she became a RN and made more money than him, she “took control” of the family finances and “controlled” her husband’s expenditure and movement.  The husband could no longer make any meaningful contribution to his family back in Nigeria unless the wife “approved” it. He could not go out without her permission. Frustrated that his formerly malleable wife had suddenly become such a “terror” to him to the point of asking for in court and getting virtually everything for which he had worked since coming to the US thirty years prior, the husband got in his vehicle and drove a few hundred miles to Dallas to settle the scores. He found her in her SUV, adorned in full Nigerian attire on her way to the birthday bash organized in her honor.  She had turned 46 on that day.  Mr. Okeowo fired several rounds into his wife’s torso while she sat at the steering wheel, mercilessly killing her in broad daylight.