23/09/2026
WHAT ELSE CAN A HUMAN BEING DO TO ANOTHER HUMAN BEING BECAUSE OF MONEY?
Some stories are difficult to believe, not because they are impossible, but because you keep asking yourself what could possibly make a human being go this far.
This is one of those stories.
Chinwe had gone to the INEC office in Surulere to collect her Permanent Voter's Card. She was given number 14 and waited patiently for about 47 minutes before her number was finally called.
She walked to the desk, handed over her NIN slip and waited for the officer to complete the process.
The officer scanned her details.
He looked at the computer screen.
Then he looked at Chinwe.
He looked back at the screen again.
Something about his expression immediately made her uncomfortable.
The officer called his supervisor.
The supervisor came over, looked at the screen and quietly said something to the officer.
Then he turned to Chinwe.
"Madam, there seems to be a problem with your record."
"What problem?" Chinwe asked.
The supervisor pointed at the computer.
VOTER STATUS: DECEASED.
NAME: CHINWE ADEBAYO.
DATE MARKED: 03/08/2026.
For a few seconds, Chinwe could not speak.
"Are you joking?" she finally asked. "I am standing right here. I am alive. I am breathing."
The official told her that according to the system, she had already been officially recorded as dead.
Chinwe insisted there must have been a mistake.
The officer printed out the record.
What she saw next almost made her collapse.
According to the document, Chinwe had supposedly died on 15 March 2025.
Cause of death: Cardiac arrest.
Place of death: Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH.
Informant: Mr. Chukwudi Adebayo, husband.
The record had already been updated with the National Population Commission on 22 March 2025.
Chinwe stared at the document in disbelief.
Her husband, Chukwudi, had been married to her for six years.
She remembered that very period clearly.
On 15 March 2025, the exact date the document claimed she died, she had been alive and well. She had even attended his cousin's wedding at Festac wearing a peach coloured lace outfit.
She and her husband had spent time together that day.
So how could she have died in LUTH?
Who had taken her body there?
Who had signed the documents?
And most importantly, why would her own husband report her death?
The INEC official explained that they could not issue a PVC to someone whose official record showed that she was deceased.
He advised her to visit the National Population Commission to have the record corrected.
Chinwe drove straight to the NPC office at Yaba.
She paid ₦5,000 for a certified true copy of the death certificate.
When the document was handed to her, her hands began to shake.
It was not a random piece of paper.
It was an official death certificate.
Her full name was there.
Her date of birth was there.
Her NIN was there.
There was an official stamp.
There was a doctor's name she did not recognize.
And then she saw the signature.
The informant was her husband, Chukwudi.
She could barely process what she was looking at.
Then the clerk noticed something else.
"Madam, this certificate was used to process benefits."
The clerk pointed at a stamp on the document.
It was from the Lagos State Teachers Cooperative Society.
The date was 10 April 2025.
Written across the document were the words:
CLAIM PROCESSED. NEXT OF KIN PAID.
Chinwe's heart sank.
She was a member of the Lagos State Teachers Cooperative Society and had been contributing ₦5,000 every month toward life insurance.
The death benefit was ₦2.5 million.
She immediately called the cooperative secretary from the car park.
"Please, I want to know if somebody made a claim on my life insurance."
There was silence on the other end.
Then the secretary finally responded.
"Aunty Chinwe... I'm sorry."
Chinwe asked what she meant.
The woman explained that her husband, Chukwudi, had brought the death certificate the previous year.
He had reportedly cried and told them that his wife had died.
He claimed he needed the money to take care of the children's school fees.
So the cooperative processed the claim.
₦2.5 million was paid to him.
Chinwe stood there speechless.
Children?
What children?
She and Chukwudi had no children.
At that moment, everything began to make sense.
Her husband had not made a mistake.
Nobody had accidentally declared her dead.
Someone had deliberately created a death record for a woman who was still alive.
Her own husband had allegedly declared his living wife dead, collected the ₦2.5 million insurance benefit and used the money to build another life.
According to what Chinwe later discovered, Chukwudi had found another woman he wanted to marry.
Her family had demanded about ₦2 million.
So he allegedly took the money from the insurance claim made in his wife's name, paid the woman's family and used the remaining money to rent an apartment for the two of them.
Meanwhile, Chinwe was still alive.
Still breathing.
Still going to work.
Still contributing to the cooperative.
Still carrying the name of a woman who, according to official records, had already died.
And the man who supposedly loved her enough to cook for her every Sunday had become the person who officially buried her on paper.
What makes the story even more painful is that after everything came to light, Chukwudi reportedly began begging Chinwe for forgiveness.
But then the question becomes:
What exactly is Chinwe supposed to forgive?
Is she supposed to forgive the man who declared her dead while she was still alive?
Is she supposed to forgive the husband who allegedly signed documents claiming he was the one who reported her death?
Is she supposed to forgive the person who collected her life insurance money and used it to start another relationship?
Or is she supposed to forgive someone who was willing to erase her existence simply because he needed money to build a new life with another woman?
Some betrayals break your heart.
Others make you question whether you ever truly knew the person sleeping beside you.
Because there are things money can buy.
But there are also things no amount of money should ever make a human being do to another human being.
If you were Chinwe, after discovering all of this, what would you do?
Would you forgive Chukwudi?
And if yes, where exactly should that forgiveness begin?
