Court dissolves 9-year-old marriage over wife’s ‘adulterous’ lifestyle

A Mapo Customary Court in Ibadan on Wednesday dissolved the nine-year-old marriage between Kazeem Busari, a surveyor, and his estranged wife, Adepeju, over wife’s lifestyle.

The court presided over by Chief Ademola Odunade held that the dissolution was in the interest of peace.

Odunade granted custody of the two children to the respondent and to pay N8,000 as monthly upkeep  allowance in addition to being responsible for their education and  welfare.

Odunade also ordered the petitioner to give N3,000 to Adepeju to enable her to move her things out of the house.

The petitioner had earlier approached the court to dissolve the marriage between him and his estranged wife so as to avert an attempt to commit murder.

Mr Kazeem, who lived at Kumapayi-Olodo in Ibadan, told the court told  that his wife’s lifestyle had given him a nightmare, saying  that there was no form of comfort and pleasure he had not exposed Adepeju to, yet  she preferred “adultery as a way of life”.

“If I had depended on just what people told me about my wife, I would not have really believed them but I personally experienced her abnormalities.

“Anytime I am away in Warri, Delta State, my second base, I keep getting bad stories of how Adepeju beat up or insult very old people in the neighbourhood.

“Times without number, she went about offering her body to her secret lovers to the extent that we nearly lost our two children to fire outbreak.

“Adepeju went on her usual adulterous act that night and locked the two children still below 10 years of age up alone in a whole house and the building caught fire.

“It took the effort of well meaning individuals in the community that rescued them.

“It is her usual practice to leave the children overnight in search of her dirty desire and I always travelled down to Ibadan on each occasion in panic to see that things are okay,” Kazeem lamented.

Adepeju, however, told the court that her husband’s decision to call it quits, was a set up by her enemies as well as spiritual attack.

The respondent argued that she had for the past nine years of her marriage to Kazeem contended with physical and spiritual forces.

“My lord, I left the children alone overnight and the incident my husband just described was a minor one.

“My younger sibling was around that evening, it was just pot of beans that got burnt and not the house.

“A certain old woman by our house who doesn’t want my success approached me to join her in witch craft, but I rejected.

“Ever since then, she was bent on making me miserable as I repeatedly have dreadful dreams which translate to reality.

“Those people around us are fond of looking for my trouble and that is why I beat them up,” Adepeju claimed.

NAN