An Upper Area Court in Kubwa, Nigeria’s Abuja ended the almost two-decade-old marriage between a businesswoman, Fawzah Alimi and her husband, Jibril Aladejana.
The judge, Garba Gambo, while giving his ruling, raised an issue with Aladejana not appearing in court even once and did not send a message or representative since the commencement of the hearing of the petition. In his view, the respondent’s attitude is a testament to his wife’s claim that he did not love her.
Gambo then proceeded to dissolve the marriage under khuli in Islamic law, which is a procedure through which a woman can divorce herself from her husband in Islam, by returning the dowry and everything she received from him during their life together, or without returning anything, as agreed by the spouse or judge.
However, he ordered Fawzah Alimi to pay the dowry of ₦20,000 to the registry of the court to be kept for Jibril Aladejana.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Alimi told the court that she got married to Aladejana under Islamic law in 2004 and is blessed with six children ages 19, 18, 14,12, 9 and 4.
She added that since they tied the knot, Aladejana had been living in Ekiti State while she stayed in Abuja and he only visited as and when he pleased.
Alimi said she only endure the past nineteen years of the marriage because she couldn’t feel her husband’s love as she would have loved to, and all attempts to make spike things up have failed.