BY RITA OYIBOKA
By now, you’ve probably come across the viral story, the tragic case of Lieutenant Samson Haruna, the young army doctor from Benue State who died from severe burns allegedly inflicted by his wife, Retyit.
It’s the sort of headline that stops your scrolling thumb in its tracks: “Army officer burnt to death by wife of five months.” The comments sections were ablaze long before anyone confirmed what truly happened. Memes, think-pieces, Twitter threads, and “exclusive” updates flooded social media, each more confident than the last in claiming to know “the real story.”
But as we’ve seen too many times, online stories often have more smoke than fire, sometimes, quite literally.
According to early reports, Retyit doused her husband with petrol as he slept, allegedly after a heated argument over infidelity. It was a horrifying tale of domestic rage gone wrong. The Army swiftly issued a statement condemning the act and promising an investigation. Nigerians didn’t need further prompting; the social media court was already in full session. Hashtags like #JusticeForHaruna and #SayNoToDomesticViolence began trending, and the wife became, in the eyes of many, a murderer.
Then came the twist, an audio recording.
In it, Retyit, a nurse by profession, wept as she claimed she was the abused one, who her husband had beaten her countless times, even causing a miscarriage. The fire, she said, was accidental. According to her, he had threatened to set her ablaze after an argument, and in the chaos of spilt fuel and flying tempers, tragedy struck. Suddenly, the internet jury grew quiet. Then divided. Some switched sides. Others doubled down. The same posts that called her a “witch” were replaced with “Maybe we judged too soon.”
And that’s the thing about the internet, it doesn’t wait for the truth; it manufactures one.
We’ve seen this script before. Consider the 2024 case of Aisha Suleiman, the 16-year-old girl from Edo State who was accused of poisoning her ex-boyfriend and his friends with a pot of pepper soup. Within hours of the story breaking, her photo was everywhere, captioned with words like “killer,” “vengeful lover,” and “heartless teen.”
Social media was ruthless, sentencing her long before investigators could even lift a finger. But weeks later, toxicology reports showed there was no poison at all; the victims had likely died from generator fumes.
The Director of Public Prosecutions quietly discharged her, saying there was no case to answer. By then, the damage was done. Her name had already been tried and condemned in the only courtroom that never forgets, the internet.
The tragedy isn’t just what happened in Akwa Ibom that day, it’s how easily we let half-truths become gospel online. We take edited clips, selective screenshots, and one-sided narrations as final verdicts. Social media has made us both jury and executioner, armed with emojis, outrage, and very little patience for context.
And let’s face it, Nigerians love drama. We consume it with the same passion. A domestic tragedy becomes clickbait; someone’s pain becomes content. Between the “gist blogs” competing for views and influencers “analysing” the case like a true-crime series, nuance doesn’t stand a chance.
But this isn’t to say domestic violence isn’t real or shouldn’t be discussed. It is and should. Both men and women suffer in silence daily across Nigeria. The Haruna case, regardless of who was at fault, exposes how unresolved marital conflicts, unchecked anger, and lack of intervention can explode into catastrophe. What makes it worse is the speed with which we consume and discard human lives like yesterday’s trends.
If you scroll through X (formerly Twitter), you’ll see two Nigerians at war over the same story: one convinced the woman is a devil in disguise, the other convinced she’s another victim of a toxic patriarchal society. Somewhere in between lies the truth, but nobody has the patience to find it.
Meanwhile, real institutions are still investigating, families are grieving, and lives are permanently scarred. But the internet? It has moved on to the next outrage.
The deeper issue here isn’t just misinformation; it’s the erosion of empathy. Social media gives us proximity to people’s lives without the responsibility of compassion. We’re close enough to comment but too detached to care. Every viral story becomes a morality play, with strangers picking sides as if watching a movie.
Perhaps what’s most unsettling is how every user becomes an “expert.” Psychologists diagnose. Detectives analyse. And everyone has a cousin in “the army” who supposedly knows what really happened. By the time the truth surfaces, if it ever does, the public has already decided who the villain is.
The Haruna tragedy may never fully be understood. Maybe both sides have their truths. Maybe the full story died in that fire. But one thing’s certain: it’s a sobering reminder that not everything online is as it seems. Behind every trending hashtag is a human being.
So next time you see a viral story, pause before you share. Ask: What if this isn’t the full story? What if there’s more behind that 30-second clip or one-line headline?
Because in a digital world where everyone’s racing to be first, very few are trying to be right. And sometimes, that difference, between being first and being right, is the line between a call for justice and another needless gossip.
