A businessman, Victor Odoemelam, on Tuesday, approached an Igando Customary Court for dissolution of his union with his wife, Blossom Odoemelam, over alleged frequent fights, threat to life and lack of love.
The petitioner, a resident of No. 6, James Akinremi, St., Idimu, told the court that he wanted a divorce from his wife because she was fond of always threatening to kill him and was not taking care of the home front.
“She is always comparing me with other men and telling me I do not match up with them. She fights with me over anything and everything; the home has become too hot for me.
“Once, her mother and sister came with a bus full of boys harmed with knives to harm me, but one of the boys deemed it fit to call me aside and asked why my wife would send them to harm me.
“After hearing my own side of the story, they all left disappointed and concluded it was good they heard my own side of the story before taking any action.
“She has threatened me several times to the extent that I had to report to her uncle who was a commissioner of police and he tried to intervene, but my wife declined his invitation to come over.
“My wife will go out at will also and not prepare food for our three children,” he told the court.
Odoemelam also stated that he and his wife had an argument on a particular day after which she picked up a knife to stab him.
“I was saved by the voice of a plumber who was working on a faulty tap, telling me to run that my wife was bringing a knife to stab me. I want a divorce. I can’t cope again,” he said.
The respondent, Mrs Blessing Odoemelam, however, described all what her husband had said as lies, adding that he failed to tell the court that he had impregnated another lady, a situation that made him change towards her and vice versa.
Blossom, a trader, said that she had been denied privacy in her home since they were married, telling the court that her husband would bring home anybody.
“All his friends and family members have access to our home at anytime.
“When I heard that he had impregnated another lady, I confronted him and he told me that if I was pained by what he had done, I should go and drink sniper.
“Since he told me that, I had vouched that I would make the home very hot for him since he was not remorseful.
“Another major issue is that it is his sister that cooks in our house; he gives her money instead of me; I am the wife and yet, I am denied my rights and responsibilities.
“He beats me in front of his family,” Blessing said, adding: “the instance of the plumber was true.
“After we had an argument, he beat me so much that my menstrual pad fell off, and that was what prompted me to pick up a knife that I would stab him.
“His sister would call me a mad woman in Igbo language. The day I found out the meaning, I warned her never to call me that and that she should instead channel that energy into finding a man to settle down with,” she said.
The respondent further told the court that after telling her sister-in-law to get married, she got angry and reported the issue to her husband.
She said that her husband, in return, head-butted her on the eye, thus prompting her mum to gather boys to threaten him never to raise his hands against her again.
Blessing said that she was okay with her estranged husband’s decision to dissolve the union, as she could not beg him to be with her since he had found love with another woman.
The court President, Mr Adeniyi Koledoye, thereafter, adjourned the matter till Aug.16 for judgment. (NAN)
