The photograph was taken on a Sunday, the first Sunday of the year. Ganiyat Ayanwale smiled into the camera, unaware that it would become a haunting keepsake, a quiet reminder of a life that should never have ended.

Few days later, she was dead.

Ganiyat, a young mother of three, was brutally stabbed to death inside her home at River Valley Estate, Ogun State, in an incident that has once again thrown the spotlight on the deadly consequences of domestic violence. By the time help arrived, her body had lost too much blood. Her internal organs were badly damaged.

She was pronounced dead at about 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, January 8, 2026, at Gifted Hands Hospital.

She was 13 years into motherhood. Her children were witnesses to a tragedy no child should ever see.

It was after the first stab that one of the children screamed. After the second, Ganiyat reportedly tried to run. She was dragged back and stabbed again.

Bleeding heavily, she staggered towards the gate of the house. Neighbours, alerted by the screams, rushed in and helped convey her to the hospital. Along the way, she reportedly narrated what happened in broken breaths, insisting she had done nothing wrong.

Her last words

“I just entered the house,” she was said to have told those helping her. “He attacked me.”

Doctors later confirmed that the knife wounds, including injuries close to her lungs, severely affected her breathing. Minutes after arriving at the hospital, she gave up the ghost.

Sources within the neighbourhood described the late Ganiyat’s husband, Mr. Ayoola Ayanwale, as a serial wife beater. According to accounts, he allegedly attempted to force his wife to ingest a poisonous substance after asking their older child to buy a locally-known pesticide. When she reportedly refused, he allegedly locked the younger children in a room, picked up a knife, and repeatedly stabbed her.

The attack, neighbours said, happened in the presence of the couple’s children.

What followed shocked even those already shaken by the brutality of the act. Witnesses alleged that after the assault, the accused husband returned to the apartment to clean blood stains before fleeing.

Suicide

Barely 12 hours later, Mr. Ayanwale was found in an open field in Sotubo, a suburb of Ogun State, gasping for breath. He was later pronounced dead in what police suspect to be suicide.

Items recovered at the scene included a bottle containing a suspected liquid substance, two mobile phones, a voter’s card and an ATM card.

Confirming the incident, the Ogun State Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Oluseyi Babaseyi, said the command was aware of the development and would issue a detailed statement.

Today, three children are left with memories instead of parents. They are forced to grow up with images that will likely follow them for life, images of violence, fear and loss.

Neighbours who spoke to Vanguard said the late Ganiyat, even in her final moments, asked for water and questioned what offence she had committed to deserve such brutality.

There was no answer.

This is not just another crime report. It is a human story, one that echoes far too often across Nigeria.

Marriage, advocates insist, is not a do-or-die arrangement. Love is not violence. Endurance is not a virtue when it is killing you.

Experts warn that abusive relationships rarely “get better” with silence. They escalate. And too often, they end in funerals.

To every woman trapped in fear, this story carries a painful but urgent message: staying alive is more important than staying married. There is no honour in suffering quietly, and no shame in choosing yourself.

The year has just begun, yet another woman is gone. (Vanguard)

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