An Ekiti Customary Court sitting in Ikole-Ekiti on Monday dissolved the 14-year-old marriage between one Adebayo Awogbemi and his wife, Odunola, over adultery and threat to life.
The President of the Court, Mrs Yemisi Ojo, dissolved the union, saying the differences between the couple were irreconcilable.
Ojo awarded the custody of the four children produced by the union to the Odunola, pending when Adebayo, the petitioner and civil servant, would be able to pay off his debt.
She held that the petitioner would gain custody of the children on or before the end of January 2020 after paying off his outstanding debt.
Ojo also said the petitioner would be responsible for the payment of the children’s school fees.
The court president, however,
ordered Odunola to be responsible for the general upkeep of the children.
Earlier, the 49-year-old Adebayo, a civil servant and resident of A5, Oloro Street, Odo Ayedun-Ekiti, had told the court that his wife was adulterous.
The father of four, who dragged his wife to the court, said that he had caught his wife in the act with her concubine on three different occasions and all his efforts to stop her had proved abortive.
The petitioner said the concubine’s mother reported his wife to a monarch in Ekiti in February, pleading that he should warn her to stay away from her son.
Adebayo also informed the court that he deliberately collected a loan of N1 million to set up a business for his wife in order to make her comfortable.
The shop, he said, suddenly became the venue for secret affairs with another man.
According to him, the respondent took the four children out of their home on Dec. 17, 2018 without his consent.
He explained that before his wife took his children away, she and her concubine had been preventing him from coming to the shop that he rented for her.
The petitioner told the court that he had been responsible for the feeding and payment of the children’s school fees until the respondent took them away.
He prayed the court to dissolve the marriage and restrain her from coming to his house or family house.
Adebayo also urged the court to grant him custody of his two sons to enable him take good care of them.
Odunola, 32, however, denied all the allegations by the petitioner.
The business woman said her husband was a womaniser who always beat her when drunk.
Odunola agreed to the dissolution but prayed the court to award the custody of all her children to her.
She claimed that she had been solely responsible for their welfare since the last two years.
