Court dissolves 18-year-old marriage over wife’s `abomination’

An Igando Customary Court, Lagos, on Wednesday dissolved the 18-year-old marriage between Mr Jonathan Ubi and his wife, Rita, after Ubi accused his wife of disappearing, which he described as an abomination.

Delivering his judgment, the president of the court, Mr Hakeem Oyekan, said that 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.

The petitioner, Jonathan Ubi, 65, a retiree, had filed a suit seeking for the dissolution of his marriage after alleging that the wife had committed an abomination.

"My wife committed an abomination by willingly abandoning her matrimonial home for four weeks to an unknown destination.

"In our tradition, it is a taboo for a wife, who abandoned her matrimonial home to come back. I cannot marry nor have anything to do with her again."

Ubi said that Rita had stopped caring for him and the children, adding that she had left 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 school as their mother cannot take proper care of them."

According to him, his wife recklessly mismanaged the business he set up for her and she was asking him for more money.

He begged the court to dissolve his 18-year-old marriage as he was no more in love with her and was also not willing to live with a woman who had committing so many atrocities.In her defence, Mrs Rita Ubi, 40, businesswoman, told the court that it was her husband that chased her from the house after threatening to bath her with acid.

"My husband chased me from 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 shatter 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 instigates my husband to reject me after insisting that I was not a good wife."

She claimed that she had always taken good care of her husband and the children, and pleaded with the court not to grant her husband's wish as she was still in love.

Court dissolves 18-year-old marriage over wife’s `abomination’

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