Deadly jealousy: Blood, bruises as ladies fight dirty over men

Across campuses, street corners and social media timelines, a disturbing trend is gathering momentum: young women brutalising, stripping, poisoning, and in some cases, killing other women over male lovers. The violence is visceral, the humiliation often filmed and shared, and the scars deep. In this report, GODFREY GEORGE explores how romantic rivalry, toxic patriarchy, digital sensationalism, and a failing justice system are colliding to create a subculture of female-on-female violence

It began with whispers. Then it spread like wildfire through the campus of the Ogun State Institute of Technology, Igbesa.

In a video that surfaced online in early June 2025, a young woman, said to be a student of the institution, is seen writhing on the floor, shielding her head as long, muscular canes lash her body without mercy.

The attackers are not hired thugs or cult members but her fellow female students.

Their rage was neither spontaneous nor restrained. It was cold and calculated. One of them, identified in the video as Lolade, led the charge with confidence and a chilling sense of purpose.

Ignoring pleas from onlookers, she declared, “Our mothers know what we’re doing. We don’t care who she tells.”

This was not merely an ambush; it was a public execution of sorts, carried out in daylight, cameras rolling, for reasons rooted in one claim: that the victim had ‘snatched’ someone’s boyfriend.

By the time the assault ended, the young woman’s back and scalp bore raw, angry welts. She was bruised, broken and humiliated.

The video, shared and reshared online, sparked widespread outrage, but also revealed a darker, more disturbing undercurrent: a wave of comments that rationalised the brutality.

“Serves her right,” one commenter said. “Girls don too dey overdo,” said another.

In a society where male infidelity is often normalised and female rivalry weaponised, this incident offers a harsh reflection of the layered violence women sometimes direct at one another, not in protest of injustice, but in defence of patriarchal power dynamics disguised as love.

The Ogun State Police Command has since confirmed that it is investigating the matter, with the Divisional Police Officer of Igbesa said to have taken over the case.

But justice, if it ever comes, cannot erase what the images already seared into public memory: a young woman cornered by her peers, beaten not for a crime, but for choosing, or being chosen.

And all of it, heartbreakingly, in the name of a man.