An Igando Customary Court sitting in Lagos on Thursday dissolved a 30-year-old marriage between Kayode Akinyade and his wife, Iyabode.

The court’s president Koledoye Adeniyi said in his ruling that the marriage between the couple could no longer hold and was thereby dissolved due to fetishness, disrespect, home abandonment, infidelity, quarrels and threat to life.

“The court rules that after a careful review of the allegations made against each other, there is no more love due to suspicion of infidelity, threat to life and the involvement of the petitioner in polygamy which does not go well with the respondent.

“The court however finds nothing wrong with the petitioner marrying another wife because it is allowed under the African tradition, more so when the parties married each other under the native law and tradition.

“The court frowns at the way the respondent abandoned her matrimonial home for years without consent from her husband which is wrong.

“On the issue of fetishes, the court believes in the efficacy of charms being a customary court but the petitioner could not prove it against the respondent,” said Mr Adeniyi.

The petitioner, Mr Akinyade, a Lagos civil servant, had accused his wife of being fetish and threatening his life.

“She had made several utterances to terminate my life; when I’m sleeping she will sneak into my room to watch me sleep with a mean stare,” Mr Adeniyi said.

“She’s also fetish; one day I saw her bathing in the middle of the night, after she was done she used a black cloth to wipe my car.”

The petitioner further told the court that his wife was very stubborn and did what pleases her, and that he had once caught her cheating when he read her chats with her lover.

The respondent, Iyabode, a trader, in her evidence said that she met her husband 32 years ago when she took a male friend to him for prayers.

“It is not also true that I am unfaithful, I stopped telling him many things because of the other wives he had,” she said.

The respondent further told the court that she never had a boyfriend all through her stay in London; neither was she quarrelsome nor stubborn nor caused him public embarrassment.

After evaluating the two testimonies, the court ruled that the 30-year-old marriage be dissolved.

It ordered the petitioner to pay the respondent N450,000 as severance allowance, N400,000 to enable her to secure an accommodation and N250,000 to enable her to take care of her health challenge. 

(NAN)