An Igando Customary Court in Lagos has dissolved the 18-year-old marriage of a a retiree, Jonathan Ubi, after his wife, Rita, 40, abandoned her matrimonial home for four weeks for an unknown destination.
Jonathan, 65, informed the court that his wife’s disappearance was an abomination and asked that the marriage be dissolved.
“My wife committed an abomination by willingly abandoning her matrimonial home for four weeks for an unknown destination. In our tradition, it is a taboo for a wife who abandoned her matrimonial home to come back,” he said.
He said his wife had stopped caring for him and the children, leaving everything for their maids.
“My wife is lazy, she cannot take care of her family, that was the reason I enrolled all my children into boarding schools as their mother cannot take proper care of them,” Ubi added.
He told the court that his wife recklessly mismanaged the business he set up for her and, thereafter, asked him for money.
He begged the court to dissolve the marriage as he was no more in love with her and was also not willing to live with a woman who had committed so many atrocities.
In her defence, Rita, a businesswoman, said she left the house to live in the church after her husband threatened to bath her with acid.
In her words: “My husband chased me out of the house. He said that I was irritating him and threatened to kill me by pouring acid on me if I refused to leave his house.
‘’So, at that point, I had no option than to move to our church to stay while waiting for his temper to cool down.
The elders in the church begged him, but he said that he could not accept me back because I have committed an abomination by sleeping outside my matrimonial home.”
The mother of three accused her husband’s family of trying to destroy her home by accusing her of fetish acts.
“My brother-in-law always accused me of using charm on my husband so that he will love only me and my children and abandon them. It is this in-law that instigated my husband to reject me after insisting that I was not a good wife,” Rita stated.
She denied not taking care of her husband and the children, saying “I have always taken good care of my husband and the children.”
Rita pleaded with the court not to grant her husband’s wish as she was still in love.
However, President of the court, Hakeem Oyekan, in his judgment, said he was convinced that the couple could no longer live together as the petitioner insisted on the divorce, even after several interventions.
“The court has no choice than to dissolve the union, in spite of the fact that the wife still claims she loves her husband.
‘’The couple can no longer stay together because the marriage has broken down totally, both parties are no longer husband and wife, they are free to go their separate ways.
‘’Both parties are to keep peace all the time, any violation of the order should be reported to the police for redress,” Oyekan ruled.
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