A former middleweight boxer, Moses Olapade, has been arrested for beating his wife, Atinuke, to a coma in Ondo. 

Mr Olapade, 56, was arrested at the weekend, by a combined team of armed policemen in Akure, after “punching” his wife severally, over a minor misunderstanding. 

Peoples Gazette gathered that the incident occurred at No 9, Odamo Street, in the Oke Aro Community of Ondo State capital, Akure. 

The misunderstanding started when the suspect, who is now a truck driver plying the northern part of the country, returned home to watch one of his favourite TV programme. 

He was said to have demanded the remote to the television set from his 44-year-old wife, Atinuke but the latter declined.

Mr Olapade, who represented Lagos State as a boxer, immediately descended on his wife and punched her in the face.

“I think the man was already stressed having returned from the long journey to the North. He repeatedly punched the woman on her face and she was unconscious. Although there’s no justification for the abuse on his wife,” a neighbour, Abiola Ibidapo, told The Gazette on Monday. 

Ms Ibidapo added that it took the timely intervention of neighbours to rescue the woman from her husband, adding that “the children ran out screaming for help” before she was rushed to the hospital for treatment. 

Funmilayo Odunlami-Omisanya, the spokesperson for the police in Ondo, was not immediately available for reaction. 

Several efforts by The Gazette to get Mrs Odunlami-Omisanya for a phone interview proved abortive. 

However, police sources revealed that the suspect has been taken into custody after he had paid the hospital bills of his wife.