A Customary Court in Ikole-Ekiti on Thursday dissolved a seven-year-old marriage between a tailor, Iyabo Ogundele and her husband, Samson on grounds of battery and threat to life.
Delivering judgment, the President of the court, Mrs Yemisi Ojo held that the court dissolved the marriage because of irreconcilable difference.
Ojo ordered both parties to go their separate ways and to stay away from each other except for the purpose of discussing issues relating to the welfare of the two children.
She said that the discussion must be done peacefully and also in the presence of at least an elderly family member.
The court president noted that anyone who harasses or threatens the other in the course of the discussion would be criminally liable and punished in accordance with the law.
Ojo awarded the custody of the two children to their mother until they are grown.
She ordered the father to provide N5,000 monthly for the upkeep of the children.
The money should be paid to the court registry on or before the end of the month from September 2021′, she ordered.
Earlier, the petitioner, Ogundele, 30, prayed the court for dissolution of marriage because Samson beats her and has refused to pay her dowry.
Ogundele told the court that the respondent also smokes and is a drunk.
”Whenever he comes home drunk, He beats me and threatens to kill me,” she said.
The petitioner prayed the court to order her husband to pay N10,000 monthly as upkeep allowance.
The respondent, Samson, a manual labourer in his evidence denied all the allegations of the petitioner.
He told the court that the petitioner left him because he caught her cheating.
Samson said he can only afford N2,000 as monthly for the upkeep of the children.(NAN)