"My Husband wants to use me for Rituals" - Wife begs Court to Dissolve her Marriage

A Customary court in Mapo, Ibadan, was told yesterday by a frightened wife, how her husband has been desperate to use her for money rituals.

Mrs Nike Akinbile, a resident of Olunloye Area of Ibadan gave the revela­tion as part of her testimony before the court where she was seeking divorce from her husband Mr. Femi Ak­inbile.

“For the past two years now, Femi has been making frantic effort to get rich at all cost and I am his prima­ry target for that purpose.

“Not too long ago, I was just lying on the bed, Femi thought that I had slept off, so he attempted to strike my eyelids with traditional eye­liner also known as tiro.

“I have received several visions that he wants to use me as a sacrificial lamb for the ritual he is making and I don’t want to die now,’’ she alleged.

Nike who urged the court to dissolve their 11 year-old marriage on that ground also accused Femi of not catering for their three children, saying that the children lacked basic care.

Femi a businessman, who denied all the allega­tions in his defence, op­posed the divorce on the grounds that the children were going to suffer in the event of any divorce.

“Your honour, I have suffered greatly all this while to sustain the mar­riage. I was the one that sent her to school and made her self-employed.

“For Nike’s education, I enrolled, wrote her exami­nations for her as well as su­pervise her other academic pursuits.

“In order to be well bal­anced in life, I encouraged her to learn tailoring which is her source of livelihood today.

“As if those are not enough, I buy Nike all sorts of ladies’ make ups to make her look beautiful and good, but Nike does not use any of the things like shoes, bags, clothes, and so on. Instead, Nike always tell me that she must take them to the church for cleansing and eventually dumped them.’’

In his judgement, the court’s President, Mr Hen­ric Agbaje, held that it was painful that some religious leaders influenced their followers with unaccepta­ble doctrines which led to marriage break ups and ap­proved the divorce.

“Well, since Nike has re­fused to be pacified to set­tling the dispute amicably, the court has no other op­tion than to put an end to the union.”

He granted Femi custo­dy of the first two children who were no more legal mi­nor, while Nike was granted custody of the third child, a legal minor.