An Ibadan-based barber, Abdulahi Olabamiji, yesterday told a Mapo Customary Court in Ibadan, Oyo State, that his wife, Yetunde, was wayward and he had caught her making love with men on eight different occasions.
Olabamiji, a resident of the Ojo area, Ibadan, said this in his counter argument while testifying before Chief Ademola Odunade, the president of the court.
He alleged that one of Yetunde’s lovers even had the temerity to attend a ceremony involving his own family sometime ago.
“My lord, while Yetunde was deeply in those adulterous atrocities, I called the attention of her parents and other relatives to them, but they kept on prevailing on me to exercise patience with her.
“One day, after Yetunde temporarily abandoned me, I went to visit her parents to discuss with them. I was, however, shocked when I saw Yetunde on the laps of another man in the house. “What happened at the scene made me conclude that her parents were backing her promiscuous attitude and I lost interest in her completely.
She keeps disgracing me and I don’t want the children to be given to her because she will corrupt them,” the respondent said.
Yetunde, a resident of the Foko area of Ibadan and fashion designer, had filed a petition for divorce citing threat to her life as the major reason why she wanted the court to dissolve the 16-year-old marriage.
She stated that due to her husband’s “troublesome character”, she had been locked up on three separate occasions in a Correctional Centre.
She alleged, “My life is not safe in his home because he constantly threatens me with a broken bottle. Aside, Abdulahi also steals my money. Worse, he often molests my parents by treating them with disdain.”
She appealed to the court to give her custody of the children. Odunade, leading two other arbitrators, Alhaji Suleiman Apanpa and Chief Rafiu Raji, dissolved the marriage “in the interest of peaceful living.”
He awarded custody of the two children produced by the union to Olabamiji and ordered Yetunde to approach the court anytime she desires to meet the children.