Mrs Mercy Bassey, the wife of a school teacher at Government Day Secondary School, Model, Jalingo, Bassey Sarduana, who was stabbed to death by a former pupil on November 11, 2023, talks to JUSTIN TYOPUUSU about the incident

Can you confirm your relationship with the deceased?

My name is Mrs Mercy Bassey; I am the wife of Bassey, who was stabbed to death by a former pupil of the school where he was teaching. I have three children with my late husband. They are Vera, who is 10 years old; Gabriel, eight years old; and Hephzibah, who is five years old.

What is your occupation?

I am a teacher at Government Day Secondary School, Magami, Jalingo. My first son is in JSS 1. I enrolled him in the school where I teach after his common entrance examination. Hephzibah and Gabriel attend RCCN Primary School in Magami.

How have you been coping with the absence of your husband after the sad incident?

It is the grace of God that is keeping me. I was shocked when I received a call about the incident because my husband was never sick; he was a very healthy man.

What were you told?

My mother was on admission at the specialist hospital, so I was there with her. All of a sudden, I got a call that my husband was rushed to the Federal Medical Centre. I was wondering what happened because he was a very healthy person. I kept thinking of this and moving from the specialist (hospital) to the FMC was like a journey from Jalingo to Yola.

What went through your mind when you were on your way to the medical centre?

I kept asking God to help me. I was telling myself, ‘Mercy, calm down God is in control’. That was what helped me till I reached the FMC. On reaching there, I saw a crowd, and as if the tricycle rider who took me knew how hasty I was because he didn’t drop me at the gate, he rode to the emergency ward. When I alighted, I saw a crowd, but my concern was to go in there and discover what was happening. When I alighted from the Keke (tricycle), I met a family friend who blocked my way and took my bag. I made an attempt to proceed, but the family friend and others held me at the entrance and refused to allow me to go inside the ward. They said he (husband) was in a critical condition and the doctors were examining him. I asked them what happened and one of the pupils came to me so I asked him what happened. 

Did he explain what happened to your husband?

He just briefly told me that my husband had been stabbed. I wondered what could have led to such because my husband didn’t like fighting with anyone. He began narrating to me what happened. While he was narrating to me what happened, I heard one of my husband’s friends crying. So, I stood up and told them to let me in because something was wrong with my husband, but they still refused. That was when they confirmed that he was dead.

My heart broke, but God did it in a way that I was able to control myself because ordinarily, I wouldn’t have known what to do; sometimes when I hear such incidents happen to people, I always say that if the same were to happen to me, I can’t bear it. Since then, I kept breaking internally; only I knew what I was feeling. I felt my veins shrinking as if I had experienced an electric shock. In fact, the signs were there for over two weeks. I was not the only one who had such signs, but I lost my peace and I kept emaciating, but then finances were difficult, so I thought it was stress from financial issues.

What exactly do you mean by that?

From Monday of the week he died, he kept saying he was not feeling happy. We went to the hospital together to see my mother, who was on admission, after which he was to proceed to work, but he said he wasn’t going to work that day. He said he didn’t feel like going to work. My mother even thought it was because of her health that he never wanted to go to work. She even stood up from her hospital bed to demonstrate that she was fine, but he insisted that he wasn’t going. So, he stayed till it was almost the close of work for the day, then he said he would go and check on the children.

On Wednesday, he was very weak, so I thought it was because he did not have money, and there were a couple of issues to be addressed, including my mother’s medication and some other small issues, and there was nothing at home. I woke up around 1am and noticed that he was still awake. I was wondering what was running through his mind. Meanwhile, I had a headache that had been disturbing me since 1991. When he noticed that I was awake, he asked if it was the headache, but that day it wasn’t the headache though I just told him that it was, so he laid hands on me and said a short prayer.

After the prayer, he laid me back to sleep but I was restless until around 4am when I got up to prepare food. He came around and helped me. He always helped me with house chores. He was my friend. I had no house help. He helped me with everything. That is my greatest pain now; where will I start from without him being around? We were living in a rented apartment, and we planned that by early next year, we would build our own house and leave the rented apartment. Even though resources were meagre, it was our plan and we were going to do it by faith.

Are you aware of any action taken by the government since the incident happened?

Well, human beings will not replace my husband, but they (the government) have done their best; they have been coming. I would be lying if I say they have not been helpful. The wife of the governor came and promised to look into the case. The Commissioner for Education also said the same. They also came two weeks ago and brought a token for the burial and said that the welfare of the family and the kids would be taken care of.

What have the police said regarding the arrest of the suspect?

I have not received any confirmation about the suspect yet. Since the day after the incident, when some policemen came here and said they would look into the case, none of them has come back to address the family. We haven’t heard anything about the case from anybody. We only heard rumours that the suspect had been arrested, but I don’t believe that he has been arrested. If he has been arrested by now, he would have been paraded and we would have been contacted too.