Marital war

•My hubby battered, threw me out of our matrimonial home – Wife

•You’re my girlfriend, not wife – Husband

 Job Osazuwa

Mr. Olanipekun Martins Oyewole and his estranged wife, Dolapo Oyewole, seem to have drawn the battle line. Their marriage is passing through turbulent waters and the once happy couple are now at loggerheads.  

When their paths crossed sometime in June 2012 in Ilesa, Osun State, the duo must have seen the beginning of a home filled with undiluted bliss. But today, they are living the exact opposite of the beautiful world they thought they had seen in each other six years ago.

According to the embittered wife, it only took them about a year to cement their relationship at a registry in Mapo Hill, Ibadan, Oyo State. She said the man had convinced her to travel to Ibadan to have the registration done, which she consented to. She recalled how Oyewole pledged to make her happy for the rest of her life. According to her, she had no reason to doubt him.

To further demonstrate his readiness to properly live with her forever, Dolapo told Daily Sun that Olanipekun had also taken his father, Pa Akinola Oyewole, mother, Madam Modupe Oyewole and other relatives to her parents to perfect their marriage in the traditional way in Ilesa.

Before then, she had done a change of name on January 31, 2014, to take on her husband’s surname.

The woman, who is a lecturer at the Osun State College of Education, Ilesa, Osun State, lamented that she had in the past two years endured physical assault and emotional bruises in the hands of her husband. She said whenever she opted to quit the relationship, everyone around her, including her parents, would calm her down, pleading that the man would soon turn a new leaf.

Dolapo described her husband as an unrepentant womaniser, alleging that he even brought lovers to their matrimonial home whenever she was at work. She said on July 3, 2016, her husband locked her outside their house for one month, and her family members put up a strong appeal before he allowed her back into the house.

She recalled how everything about their union gradually got messier and finally collapsed on January 30, 2018, after she discovered her husband’s medical doctor mistress the previous day.

Her words: “My husband, who is the chairman of National Association of Hospital and Administrative Pharmacists (NAHAP), had finished eating the food l prepared for him in the morning of that day, January 30, and he even gave me money to buy some items that were not in the house.

“After leaving my office in the evening, I was in the market at 5.30pm buying foodstuff when my husband called to inform me to meet him at my parents’ house. I asked him why, but he didn’t give any reason. Because I had fresh fish among the items l bought, I rushed home to keep the fish in the freezer before going for the meeting. But on getting to the gate of my matrimonial house, I saw another padlock there. My husband had changed the key.

“I drove to my parents’ house but he didn’t show up till two months later. That was how he dumped me with my people, and that was how I started staying in my father’s house simply with the only clothes I was putting on. To go to work, I had to buy more clothes.”

She said her husband rejected all attempts to find out the cause of his anger and, perhaps, resolve the issue amicably. She told the reporter that it came to her as a rude shock when her husband came to her parents’ house on March 29 with some of her belongings.

Dolapo said: “On Thursday, March 29, at about 7am, I saw my husband’s car, and he was throwing my belongings out from it. Before we could say anything, he angrily went away. I went downstairs and packed them into the house. Not quite 45 minutes later, he came again and started throwing out another set of my belongings violently from his car. At that point, my mother asked him why he was destroying my things, that it was not fair. As I moved close to his car, he slapped me and began to hit me. Then I held his shirt. My mother asked him to stop beating me, and he hit her hard on her hand. The old woman fell and hit her hand on a stone. He tore the clothes I was wearing; it was neighbours who came to rescue me from him.

“Having dealt with us to his satisfaction, he zoomed off. I boarded a motorcycle and went to a police station to report the case. On getting to Ayeso Police Station, I met him there. The Divisional Police Officer (DPO) asked my husband what I was to him, and he said I was his girlfriend. But I told the DPO I was his wife, not a girlfriend.

“At that point, the DPO asked me for the evidence of our marriage, and I told him they were in my husband’s house, but my husband then said he would not grant me access into his house. The DPO then assigned two police officers to accompany me to bring the evidence.

“As I collected our marriage certificate and returned to the station, my husband’s concubine, who is a doctor and mother of two, told my husband to collect my car from me. And immediately, he asked the police to impound my car. Neither my husband nor the police explained to me why my car was seized. Since that Thursday, my husband has not showed up at the police station.”

She said her husband now lives with his doctor lover in the same house he barred her from entering at Imose Quarters, ljebu-ljesha Road, Ilesa, Osun State.

Dolapo, who said she was no longer interested in the marriage, has vowed to seek justice from the appropriate court of law. She said she could no longer endure what she described as the endless agony and psychological trauma she was passing through in her husband’s house.

Meanwhile, she said it was not the first time her husband was acting strange. She narrated how her husband, on December 12, 2017, returned from work and told her to get another accommodation. She said when she asked what the problem was, the man said they could no longer stay together. His parents pleaded with her to be patient, that they would speak to their son.

Dolapo said she was suing her husband for battery, emotional and psychological torture and trauma he inflicted on her.

However, when the reporter contacted Oyewole on the telephone, he denied all the allegations levelled against him by his wife. In fact, he said Dolapo was not his wife but a girlfriend.

On the beating and other acts of maltreatment he was accused of, the man said he didn’t raise his hand against either Dolapo or her mother. He said it was his girlfriend and her relatives that pounced on him in their house and tore his shirt. He added that he had to run to the police station to lay a complaint.

“I am a responsible citizen of Nigeria. I didn’t touch her or her mother. Everything she said is a lie. We were never married to each other and she has no child for me,” he claimed. 

But Dolapo countered Oyewole’s claim over their marital status. She showed the reporter the original copy of the certificate of registration of marriage issued on October 4, 2013, at the Ibadan South East Local Government Customary Court Central Registry, Mapo Hill, signed by a senior registrar, M.O. Sanusi.