…As 2-year old marriage crashes in Ibadan over irreconcilable differences***
A Nyanya Customary Court, near Abuja on Monday, dissolved a seven-year-old marriage between a police woman, Florence Idu, and husband, Shedrach Emmanuel over domestic violence.
The court presided over by justice Shitta Mohammed granted the request of Florence, ruling that the union had irretrievably collapsed, after all efforts by the court to bring the respondent to court to resolve the issues between the parties, failed.
“It is on record that throughout the sitting of this case, the respondent has played pranks on this honourable court and has not being honouring the sittings.
“The irreconcilable differences between the two parties showed that they are no longer compatible; therefore, the marriage is hereby dissolved,’’ Mohammed said.
He, however, gave the custody of the only child of the marriage to the mother, saying that the child was only five years old and still needs the tender care of her mother.
Also read: Woman wants court to dissolve marriage over husband’s persistent desire to kill self
Mohammed also ordered that the sum of N1,500 dowry be paid by the petitioner, to the registry of the court, for onward delivery to the respondent.
Earlier, Florence had told the court that her husband always beats and assaults her, leaving her with bruises all over her body.
She also told the court that her husband had pushed her out of the house in the middle of the night, on several occasions.
In another development, Chief Ademola Odunade, the President of a Mapo Customary Court in Ibadan, on Monday dissolved the two-year-old marriage between one Omotayo Ihejamat and husband, Ikechukwu, over irreconcilable differences.
Odunade held that since the couple had mutually consented to part ways, the court had no option than to grant the request.
“I hereby put an end to the union between Omotayo and Ikechukwu in the interest of peaceful living,” he said.
He awarded custody of the nine month-old child produced by the union to Omotayo and ordered Ikechukwu to pay N5,000 as the child’s monthly feeding allowance.
In her petition, Omotayo said her mother-in-law was the reason her marriage to Ikechukwu failed.
“If I had known that Ikechukwu’s mother would not allow me to have a peaceful union with her son, I wouldn’t have bothered going to the altar with him.
“It had been each day of trouble in my relationship with Ikechukwu as marriage has been very difficult for me.
“I thought that I could pacify Ikechukwu’s mother by travelling to the village in the East to spend some time there and probably make her love me by establishing a good relationship with her.
“She even hated me the more because she hardly gave me food and when she does, she never put meat or fish in it.
“In fact, Ikechukwu’s siblings gave me the beating of my life during the process of my visit to them in the East.
“If not for his father who was kind to me by giving me N10,000 for my return to Ibadan, I don’t know how I would have made it,” Omotayo said.
The respondent, however, denied the allegations leveled against him and his mother.
Ikechukwu, who lived at Oke-Ado area in Ibadan with his wife, alleged that the petitioner was a disobedient spouse.
“My lord, against my advice and instruction not to travel yet, Omotayo went to my village in the East and duly got the result for her disrespect.
“On getting there, she became rude to my mother and my younger ones could not bear it and they beat her up.
“It is also not true that my mother starved her of meat or fish in her food because my mother is a food vendor and there is more than enough.
“Omotayo is simply a badly behaved wife who hates my mother.
“Knowing what she had done, she just stayed away from my apartment when she returned from my village,” Ikechukwu said.
