I was in a deep sleep when my friend woke me up to inform me of a midnight fight between my neighbor and his wife. I struggled to lift the blanket off myself when I sensed a repeated tap in my sleep.
"What is the problem?" I asked my friend, Jude while I picked up a pillow to support my back against the wall.
"This man has started with his wife again," he responded.
I kept mum for a few seconds to listen to what was happening outside. I heard the woman crying and knocking on their door aggressively.
"Why is this man behaving like this?" I asked Jude. "This man needs to be dealt with. If he is not mentally mature enough to have a wife, why did he get married?" I raged in anger.
The woman's cry was becoming intense.
"I will call the cops to come and arrest this man this night for domestic violence," I told my friend, before wearing a shirt, to go out and assess the situation.
"You want to involve the cops. Won't you get tired of these people?" Jude asked me with laughter.
"If anything happens to this woman this night, we will be called upon as witnesses. I won't wait till something bad happens. I won't mind their characters. We need to prevent the worst from happening."
Jude let out a loud laugh before wishing me luck on my intervention. He went back to his room and slept.
I understood Jude clearly. The last time we intervened in the couple's quarrel, it didn't end well for us. It happened at night, too. When my intervention wasn't respected by the man, I called for the help of Yanbanga, a community police officer. The Yanbanga personnel came and arrested the man and locked him up. The following morning, the woman was blaming us for involving Yanbanga. She said she never invited us to intervene in their case. Jude and I were angered by the statement.
On that day, Jude vowed never to intervene in their issues again. Though he has every reason to decide as such, I felt that when a problem involves the safety of a party, I can't fold my hands and watch on.
Jude is holding on to his vow, never to intervene again. He goes back to his room. I stood at the door for a few minutes. I was blowing cold and hot. A part of me wanted to intervene, especially due to the crying of the woman whose two kids joined to cry from inside the house. The other part of me was warning me that the last time I intervened like that, I ended up receiving blame from the very woman for whom I acted to protect her rights.
After a few minutes, Jude came to the living room to meet me.
"You are still here. Are you not going out to settle the quarrel again? What is stopping you?"
I stood still for a few seconds before I finally succumbed to the part of me that wanted me to intervene. I opened my door and went outside. The time was 12 a.m.
I met the woman crying with a pool of tears flowing down her cheeks while she continued to hit the door for her husband to open it for her. The two kids were inside, crying. I was heartbroken. I addressed the man from outside.
"Please open the door for your wife to spend the night. I am not here to settle your misunderstanding, but I am concerned about the safety of this woman who is remaining outside at this time of the night."
All my pleas to the man fell on deaf ears. He didn't utter a word.
I went back inside and made a phone call to a police station close to us. After explaining the details to the officer who picked up my call, he requested the detailed address.
A few minutes later, the police team arrived with their van.
The man refused to open the door initially, even when the policemen identified themselves. Instead of opening the door as requested by the police, he found his voice to talk to me.
"Ojo, you will tell me what is between you and my wife. The other time, I told you to keep off our issues, but you didn't want to. I will make you do that the hard way."
I didn't respond to his vituperations, but I took note of every word.
The police threatened to force the door open before he finally opened the door. He was arrested immediately and handcuffed. He was matched to the van while they zoomed off to the station.
While climbing the van, he turned and threatened me.
"You have called the police to arrest me, right? I am coming back for you," he threatened.
He was taken away while the wife entered their apartment with the children and went to sleep.
I concluded that I had been living with a madman unknowingly.
The following morning, I went to the police station to lodge a formal complaint against the accusation of having secret affairs with his wife and the threats. He was made to write multiple statements. He wrote a statement to the effect that he lied against me with respect to the accusation. He withdrew his threats and apologized. The police told him that he would be held responsible if anything untoward happened to me.
They continued to stay together as a couple after the incident, but their relationship was filled with one day of love and two days of trouble. I left the own and State entirely a few months later, when I got a job in another state.
In all of these, I didn't regret my interventions.