An Ado-Ekiti Customary Court on Friday dissolved a 25-year-old marriage between Kikelomo Ogundele and her husband, Joseph Ogundele.
NAN recalls that both parties had earlier given their testimonies on Oct. 24, and the matter was later reserved for judgment.
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News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the marriage was dissolved on grounds of frequent beating, provocation, no rest of mind and destruction of her property by her husband.
Kikelomo, 40, a resident of No 10, Omisanjana in Ado-Ekiti, told the court that she left her husband sometime in 2014 and remarried in 2018.
She said that when they were together she was selling food while her husband was a carpenter, saying things were not moving well with them.
She said that there was a time she bought two cars for him so that if he was working with the vehicles, she would have peace.
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The mother of four added that there was another time, she bought three different motorcycles for him for commercial business known as (Okada), saying he sold the motorcycles without her knowledge.
According to her, there was a particular time she gave her husband money to buy a land so that they can have their own house.
She said he gave the man (landowner) the money in her presence, while behind her he went to collect the money back from the man.
She said that her husband was fond of telling her that he would not accept for her to be wealthy more than he.
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She also alleged that while he was fond of bringing women to the house she would not talk.
Kikelomo alleged that whenever her husband was angry he would tear all the money she realised in her business into pieces.
She explained that, at times he would come to her shop and pour sand on the yam she was pounding as well as her soup for customers.
She said the neighbours advised her to leave him because someone behaving in that manner could eventually kill her at night.
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“There was a day, his friend advised me to get a land and develop it, but my husband got to know later and told me to leave his house.
“When I did not pack out, he packed out and went to live in another woman’s house,” she said.
She alleged that her husband destroyed her property by always packing them out.
She added that her husband was fond of beating her saying, there was a time he beat her and she fainted and only when she was rushed to the hospital that she regained consciousness.
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She said the shop she got after packing out of his house was burnt to ashes by her husband.
She said that she gave birth to four children including Kemi (20), a married woman, with two boys aged 17 and14 male and another girl aged 11.
The petitioner, therefore, prayed the court to separate them and award the custody of the last two to her.
But the respondent, Joseph Ogundele, 50, a resident of Gbohunalore Street in Ado-Ekiti, denied that his wife bought two cars for him, saying that he bought the cars from someone close to him.
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He also denied collecting money for buying land from his wife.
He said that he did not pour sand in her pounded yam but only went to her shop that day, saying she was fond of going to another man’s house to sleep and then retire to the shop.
He denied beating his wife to the extent that she fainted.
He alleged that it was adultery that was causing their incessant fight, saying there was a man working with him that his wife was having an affair with.
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The respondent, therefore, supported the separation and urged the court to award the custody of his last three children to him.
The President of the Court, Mrs Olayinka Akomolede, observed that the marriage had broken down irretrievably and consequently dissolved the marriage.
Akomolede ruled that the custody of two children should be awarded to the respondent, while the third was awarded to the petitioner.
She also ordered that the respondent shall be paying the sum of N5,000 for the monthly feeding allowance of the child who is under the custody of the petitioner.
She said both parties shall be responsible for the education of their children.
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She added that it would be an offence for the respondent, henceforth, to go to the shop of the petitioner to foment trouble.
Access was granted to both parties to see their children without any acrimony.
