Three-year-old marriage between a businesswoman, Mrs Nelly Ibegbu, and her estranged husband, Donatus, was on Tuesday dissolved by an Igando Customary Court in Lagos over infidelity.
Nelly, 32, had accused 44-year-old Donald of infidelity.
“Donatus receives a lot of calls from women. Most times, after receiving the calls, he will abandon whatever he is doing and rush out without telling me where he is going.
“There was a day his phone rang and he was in the bathroom; I picked the call and a lady on the other end called him “honey”, thinking he was the one who picked the call.
“I asked her what she wanted with my husband, and she told me Donatus never told her he was married. Whenever we walk on the road, he will look at a woman and forget himself until I call his attention,’’ she had told the court.
Nelly also said that Donatus, a clearing and forwarding agent, denied her access to property they jointly owned.
“After our marriage in 2015, my husband told me that his brother wanted to sell his Mazda car for N400,000, and he persuaded me to buy the car.
“I gave Donatus N380,000 and his brother accepted the money but when he eventually came home with the car and I asked for the receipt, it was his name that was written on it.
“I queried it but he told me that as husband and wife, we are one.
Again, I gave him money to buy a bus so that he could use it for commercial purposes when his business was not going well; his name also appeared on the receipt,’’ she said.
The petitioner said that Donatus was in the habit of collecting money from her in the guise of giving it to the police or traffic officers to retrieve the bus from them.
“I later discovered that he used to hide the bus to extort money from me. He is now claiming that the two vehicles belonged to him just because his names were on the receipts, whereas his money was not in both vehicles,’’ the petitioner said.
The businesswoman said that Donatus was irresponsible and regularly assaulted her.
“My husband lacks care for me; he does not give me money for food but whenever I use my money to cook, he will eat the larger portion.
“I am a graduate and he is a school certificate holder; I bought all the property in the house because he refused to buy them after our wedding. I also paid the house rent,’’ she said.
“Donatus beat me at the slightest provocation and assaulted my sister with a machete when she visited,’’ she said.
Nelly prayed the court to end the marriage yet produced a child.
“I am no longer interested,’’ she said.
Donatus, however, said that he assaulted Nelly’s sister because she was misleading her.
“I assaulted my sister-in-law with a stone not a cutlass, as she wanted to destroy my home by always advising my wife wrongly,’’ he said.
The clearing and forwarding agent said that Nelly always threatened to kill him by poisoning him.
He admitted beating Nelly for slapping him and tearing his clothes whenever they had an argument.
“I once beat her and she had a miscarriage,’’ he said.
According to him, he bought the above-mentioned vehicles before he married Nelly.
The respondent consented to the dissolution of marriage.
“I have also lost interest in the marriage,’’ he said.
The Court President, Mr Akin Akinniyi, held that the estranged couple consented to the dissolution of their marriage and the court had no choice than to dissolve it.
“The court hereby pronounces the marriage between Mrs Nelly Ibegbu and Mr Donatus Ibegbu dissolved; both of you henceforth cease to be husband and wife.
“Each of you should go his or her separate way unmolested.
“The court wishes both of you well in your future endeavours,” Akinniyi ruled. (NAN)
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