Aliyu Muhammad went to his workshop like any other Sunday. His wife never came home.

Aliyu Muhammad is a mechanic in Maraban Jos, Kaduna State. On the morning of June 21, he left for his workshop the way he always does. His wife, Ummulkhair, left for her Islamiyya lesson the way she always did. Nothing about the morning felt different.

"It was a normal day," he told the BBC Hausa service afterward, struggling through the interview. "She left for Islamiyya while I went to my workshop. There was nothing unusual."

Hours later the calls started. Someone had accused his wife of trying to kidnap a child. She had been taken to the Maraban Jos police station. Aliyu assumed, reasonably, that this meant an investigation was underway and the truth would come out. That's the way these things are supposed to work when the accusation turns out to be false, as this one did.

By the time he understood what was actually happening, a crowd had already overwhelmed the officers holding her and dragged her out of the building. She did not survive the day.

Aliyu Muhammad is now raising four children without their mother. He's waiting on a court case that won't reconvene until July 21. At the centre of it is an allegation that the officer meant to protect his wife may have been the one who let the crowd take her instead. He went to work like it was any other Sunday. It was the last one his wife would ever have.

What does it mean to trust a system that fails you completely, and then be asked to wait weeks for it to explain itself? Aliyu doesn't have an answer yet. Neither does anyone else.