A trader, Mrs Helen Otike, has prayed an Igando Customary Court, Lagos to dissolve her 18 year-old marriage to her husband, Godwin, for allegedly denying her sex for nine years.
Otike, 45, told the court on Wednesday that her husband, with whom she had no child, starved her of sex.
“My husband does not want me to have a child; he has refused to sleep with me.
“We live as strangers in the house, no intimacy no relationship,” she said.
The petitioner said that her husband abandoned her in his five-bedroom duplex seven years ago to marry another wife in Abuja.
“My husband relocated to Abuja and left only me in the house he built; he refused to take care of me.
“Whenever I call him, he always told me that he will call me back, which he never did.
“On two occasions, I travelled to Abuja, I was able to locate where he is working but he refused to take me to his house.
“It was later I heard that he had married another woman in Abuja who had children for him,” she said.
She also described her husband as a dubious fellow.
“When my husband went to Abuja, I connected him with my brother who accommodated him for two years and also introduced him to a business.
“But he duped the people my brother introduced him to and ran away from my brother’s house and my brother was arrested,” the estranged wife said.
She said that she also discovered that her husband had a wife and three children before their marriage which he never told her.
“I stumbled on pictures of my husband’s wedding, I confronted him with those pictures and he confessed that he married the woman when he was in the world.
“I accepted his plea but not long he impregnated another woman before relocating to Abuja,” she said.
She begged the court to terminate the marriage that had not produced any child, claiming that she wanted to move on with her life.
“My husband has children from three women, I also want to be a mother, please dissolve the union so that I can move on with my life,” she said.
Rebutting the allegations, Godwin Otike, a businessman, said that he stopped making love to his wife when he heard that her mother was behind his predicament.
“My mother told me that my mother-in-law was responsible for my downfall which I strongly believed because my health and businesses were booming until I married my wife.
“When my mother-in-law was invited to come and say what she knows about my businesses and health, she refused to come.
“Because of that, I have to stop any intimacy with her daughter and that also made me to abandon her in my house to relocate to Abuja to start a new life,” he said.
The respondent said that his wife was a good woman and that he loved her but because of her mother’s demonic nature he has to run for his dear life.
The president of the court, Mr Adegboyega Omilola, adjourned the case to Feb. 28 for further hearing. (NAN)