An Ado-Ekiti Customary Court on Friday dissolved a 25-year marriage between Kikelomo and her husband, Joseph Ogundele.
The News Agency of Nigeria recalls that both parties had given their testimonies on October 24, following which the matter was reserved for judgment.
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 when they were together, she was selling food while her husband was a carpenter, saying things were not moving well with them.
She said there was a time she bought two cars for him so that if he was working with the vehicles, she would have peace.
The mother of four added that, there was another time she bought three different motorcycles for him for commercial operation, 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 could build their own house.
Kikelomo said her husband paid for the land in her presence, but he later went back to collect the money without her knowledge.
She said that her husband was fond of telling her that he would not accept for her to be wealthy more than him.
She also alleged that he regularly brought women to the house.
Kikelomo told the court 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, and also into her soup.
She said their neighbours advised her to leave him because someone behaving in that manner could eventually kill her.
“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 throwing 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 regained consciousness in the hospital.
She said the shop she got after packing out of his house was burnt to ashes by her husband.
She said they had four children together aged 20, 17, 14 and 11.
The petitioner, therefore, prayed the court to separate them and award the custody of the last two children 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.
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.
The respondent, therefore, supported the separation and urged the court to award the custody of his last three children to him.
President of the Court, Mrs, Olayinka Akomolede, observed that the marriage had broken down irretrievably and consequently dissolved it.
Akomolede ruled that 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.
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.
(NAN)
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