Babatunde Olaoye, has told Oja Oba/Mapo Court C Customary Court, Mapo, Oyo State, he’s no more interested in his nine-year-old marriage to his wife, Lola Olaoye. According to Babatunde, his wife was disobedient, troublesome and unfaithful to him, thus he asked the court to separate them and grant him custody of their two children.
“My lord, my wife and I can do without many things, but the only thing we can’t do without is fight.
“We don’t just stop at fighting, we feel satisfied only after we might have inflicted injuries on each other.
“She didn’t change even after we moved to a new place. Our neighbours were always complaining of her.
“She once hit a female co-tenant on the head with a heavy stick and she bled. My wife felt unrepentant and refused to apologise even after I told her to do so.
“She later took to returning home late. Initially she started returning home around 10: 30 pm. I complained but she refused to change. She got worse and started coming back home between 12:00 am and 1:00 am.
“I had no choice but to take up cooking for our children since she wasn’t bothered about their welfare.
“There were times I stayed back in shop to work so as not to disappoint my customers. I later learnt from our neighbours that she always brought her ex husband home and spent the night with him on those days.
“We later moved to our own house and within few weeks the neighbourhood had known us because we were always fighting.
“We once fought and inflicted deep cuts on each other with the shovel. She moved to her parents’ house after this and was there for nearly eight months.
“After our parents had mediated in our differences, she returned to my place.
“The eldest of our children later told me that while they were in her grandfather’s place, their mother’s ex husband was in the habit of always sneaking into her mother’s room late in the night when their grandfather and every other person in the house must had gone to bed.
“She added that he would sneak out at dawn before others were out of bed.
“I was stunned when she started talking and recorded all she said on my phone.
“I confronted her with this information but she denied it. I went mad and wild. She was also fierce. We fought and tore each other’s clothes, inflicted injuries on each other and bled from the injuries.
“Our neighbours did all they could to separate us but we didn’t stop until we were tired.
“She later left home and left our children with me.
“My lord, I can no longer live under the same roof with a whore. Please, dissolve our union so that I don’t commit murder, “the plaintiff ended.
Lola acceded to divorce, but prayed the court to grant her custody of their two children.
She stated thus:
“All that my husband has said are lies. His plan is to paint me black.
“He is a violent human being and can kill if not restrained.
“He picked fault in all I did and never ceased to beat and leave me nursing wounds.
“He accused me of sleeping with my ex husband and some other men. He came to my shop, beat me, tore my clothes and inflicted wounds on me. I bled. He would have killed me, but for customers who were around and who rescued me from his hands.
“My face was swollen for days.
“This is the shirt I wore on that day and the pictures I took (she handed them over to the court as proof).
“It got to a point that I felt scared going home after the day’s work which was the reason I tarried a bit in shop.
“We fought two months after we had our first baby and I moved to my parents’ house. I was there for eight months. I also spent nearly one and a half years there when we had our second child.
“When I returned to him on both occasions, he asked me to swear with the Bible that I slept with no other man while I was away from home and I did.
“After we moved out of his father’s house, he brought in a woman who occupied our former room there. This woman became his bed mate.
“He later impregnated her, but he lied to me that the pregnancy was not his. To my surprise, my husband played the full role of a father during the child’s naming ceremony. The woman automatically became his second wife.
“He was fond of bringing home strange women and sleeping with them.
“I caught him twice in bed with these women. The second time I caught him making love to one of these women on our bed, I beat the hell out of her. My husband felt insulted. He descended on me with punches and threw me out of the house, “the defendant stated.
“At another time, my husband and I fought; he tore my clothes and stripped me naked. He wanted to push me out of the house naked but I ran into the bathroom and shut the door behind me.
“He went mad and hit the door with a shovel. This split the door into two. He hit me with the shovel and I bled. I also ran for the second shovel and hit him with it.
“He afterwards threw me and my belongings out of his house, “she concluded.
After listening to the couple, the court president, Chief Ademola Odunade adjourned the case till October 4 and ordered them to come to court with their parents.
