22-year-old Ada Ocha Ntu, better known as Ada Esther Johnson fell in love and married Mark Hall, a British railway worker, simply known as a colonial worker during the colonial era but today called 'expatriate'.
She gave her all to him, even going as far as lending him a whopping sum of £400 before he left for England for his home in Britain for business.
Instead of this business, he used the money to marry an English bride and used part of the money to buy his new bride a car which she would use to start a transport business in the UK.
He returned to Nigeria and confessed to Ada what he’d done with her money and she was very furious. She used a pair of scissors to stab Mark. Sadly, he died from injuries sustained from the attack.
As the trial progressed and details of the case emerged sympathy became a national issue. The court found Esther Johnson guilty of murder on June 18, 1953, and sentenced her to death.
The public was not willing to accept that she deserved life imprisonment and there were protests all over Nigeria, especially in Kano, Jos, and Ibadan.
Fortunately, on the 1st of October 1961 on the occasion of the first anniversary of Nigeria's Independence, she was pardoned by the Governor-General, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, and released from jail.
She later got married to a policeman, Mr. Joshua Ayeni on April 23rd, 1964.
“Esther’s Revenge” at the Freedom Park in Lagos is named after her.
She gave her all to him, even going as far as lending him a whopping sum of £400 before he left for England for his home in Britain for business.
Instead of this business, he used the money to marry an English bride and used part of the money to buy his new bride a car which she would use to start a transport business in the UK.
He returned to Nigeria and confessed to Ada what he’d done with her money and she was very furious. She used a pair of scissors to stab Mark. Sadly, he died from injuries sustained from the attack.
As the trial progressed and details of the case emerged sympathy became a national issue. The court found Esther Johnson guilty of murder on June 18, 1953, and sentenced her to death.
The public was not willing to accept that she deserved life imprisonment and there were protests all over Nigeria, especially in Kano, Jos, and Ibadan.
Fortunately, on the 1st of October 1961 on the occasion of the first anniversary of Nigeria's Independence, she was pardoned by the Governor-General, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, and released from jail.
She later got married to a policeman, Mr. Joshua Ayeni on April 23rd, 1964.
“Esther’s Revenge” at the Freedom Park in Lagos is named after her.
from Nigeria Stories on X
Oh wow.
ReplyDeleteWhy is she being immortalized for committing a crime of passion? Flip the cards and everyone will clamour for the man's head.
ReplyDeleteSo what are we supposed to learn from this story? That it's ok to unãlive a lover who defrauds you?
This is clearly written by a man hahahaha
DeleteThe story sweet me die!!! I guess this really proves the saying, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."
Ron she could have revenged in some other ways not murder. Life is precious.
DeletePoor man.
ReplyDeleteNo be today this saga start.
ReplyDeleteNa waoh. Some women get mind sha.
Men misbehaving didn’t start today , see wickedness!
ReplyDeleteWhy immortalize her? Should such action be encouraged?
ReplyDeleteThis is my first time of hearing about this story
ReplyDeleteWhat's the essence of immortalizing her? Both of them have wickedness in them.
ReplyDeleteWow.
ReplyDeleteWowwwwww. Esther's Revenge sound so interesting.
ReplyDeleteSeems like Esther came from a family of some means, £400 in the 1950s was quite a lot of money and to have that at only 22 makes me wonder about who Esther was. She is dressed much better than the man in his very simple clothes and he looks much older than she does. I wonder what the attraction was, since he appeared to be of a different social class and unrefined. A very interesting story.
ReplyDeleteIt's well
ReplyDeleteNa wah ooo.
ReplyDeleteHmmmmmm
ReplyDeleteThe Most Complex B
Betrayal has been in existence from time immemorial
ReplyDeleteWow! Hearing about this for the first time.
ReplyDeleteEsther no get joy.
God forbid!!! Nothing to learn from this story!
ReplyDeleteEUM Cali
Never heard of such story before.
ReplyDeleteOk, so men too can be 'unliving' the babes that ate their monies and Japa, or is it only when women do it it can be justified?
ReplyDeleteThe action was wrong, but she probably didn't see herself as having anything to lose then. People who get to that point of truly not caring the outcome will do anything. I did some math and the money she gave him would be worth about 20 million naira today. So, to learn that he married another woman and started a business in England that she would never have any ability to gain from probably blazed her up to a point that she just said fck it. Considering the temperature of the times, she probably also was not feeling like economically building up a white man and his white wife off her back as a colonized black woman.
DeleteWhat math did you use to get 20 million naira? Bloody hypocrite. All this to justify her murderous actions.
Delete16:22, why are you so heated about a story about two dead ppl that likely happened well before you were born? It happened and the law released her, an entire nation spoke up for her so what power do I have to justify anything when the law and the nation justified her a long time ago..I enjoyed reading your comment though..lol
DeleteThey are both evil, even the woman action is worse. You could imagine killing someone.
ReplyDeleteNa wa oh.
ReplyDeleteWhat a story
ReplyDeleteNa wawawawawa
ReplyDeleteShe get heart ooo..
At her young age
Hello iya Boys
Wow. I've never heard this story before. I love this segment so much
ReplyDeleteHearing it for the first time. She might not have wanted to kill the man hence the sympathy. Na Wahoooh
ReplyDeleteTwo of a kind 🙄🙄🙄
ReplyDeleteMay be Esther was a colonial prostitute, trying to invest in one of her customer. If the case was other way round, how will you as an individual judge the case? I think she deserved to pay for her crime, but it is the way of our biafraud people back in the days. Even the coup ploter/murders were enjoying inside prison while the northern political elites were rotten inside grave
ReplyDelete