Drama in Yaounde, police guns down wife and then commits suicide

Essembe Efioh Vincent, a police officer of the 3rd grade who worked at the Judicial Police at Elig-Essono in Yaoundé, Friday, shot himself to death after killing his own wife, Barbara Effioh with the same firearm.

Essembe had charged into Barbara’s job site at Crédit Foncier bank in Yaounde, located at the 20th May Boulevard, around 8 a.m., before picking up a quarrel with her. According to first-hand information gathered on the scene, when the police officer entered the wife's office, he looked tense, agitated and straight to Barbara, he began telling her that enough was enough and that he wasn’t ready to lose her to another man.

Barbara who had reportedly long abandoned Essembe and the matrimonial home immediately retaliated as the husband launched the offence. As the exchange between the two intensified, Barbara's colleague who was right next to her walk out after she realised that it was purely a matrimonial issue. The contention went wild and Essembe who could no longer control himself pulled out his revolver and began firing at his wife and she died instantly.

Perhaps for fear of mob justice and certainly because of the gravity of the issue that sent them at logger heads, Essembe who hails from Ndian division in the South West region pulled the trigger of the same rifle on his own head. Both husband and wife laid flat on the floor dead.

There was consternation and pain at the May 20 Boulevard site so much so that even the police found it difficult to contain the mammoth crowd that turned out to have a glimpse of the pathetic scene.

No one, not even Barbara's colleagues could explain exactly what the strife between the duo was all about. But reports say it must have been something beyond normal marital differences.

Barbara, the Journal gathered, had before the mishap abandoned Essembe for an unspecified conduct described as intolerable. But Essembe, we gathered was not ready to lose his wife to anybody, talk less of a simple divorce; which The Journal gathered Barbara was at the verge of getting.

It was allegedly because of the inability of the two to reach a consensus that Essembe undertook his homicide mission. The duo we gathered, got married some four years. Both quit the scene with no kids.

It should be recalled that barely a week ago in Yaounde still, precisely on May 1, one Atangana Arbogaste, another police officer fired at an armless civilian who had rushed in to rescue a young girl who was about being raped by the police officer. The innocent civilian who was being rushed to the hospital succumbed to death before they could reach the hospital.