MICHAEL AKINOLA
The 23-year old marriage between Isiaka Odeyemi and his wife, Feyisola Olapeju, has collapsed after the man filed a suit at Ado Ekiti Customary Court seeking dissolution of their marriage and described the wife as being fetish for “mysteriously killing” her first child.
P.M.EXPRESS reports that the marriage was dissolved on grounds of incessant fighting deeply rooted in fetish threats with charms and no rest of mind caused by the wife.
An embittered Odeyemi had told the Court that his wife was deeply rooted in fetish things because she worships things with alcohol and kola nut, which he did not support.
The father of two adult children, Odeyemi, revealed before the Court that his wife killed her first child and the two children she had for him are not doing well stating that he suspected that the children were into internet fraud popularly known as ‘Yahoo Yahoo’.
He pleaded with the Court to dissolve their marriage so that he will move on with his life because his wife does not give him rest of mind, saying that she was fond of fighting with him.
Odeyemi stated : “Please separate us, I fought with my wife on one occasion and asked her to pack her belongings and leave but the children, Femi, 22 and Taye, 19, threatened that I must not send their mother away”.
The respondent, Mrs. Feyisola, told the Court that the complainant was her husband, she agreed to get married to him and had her first child for him in Abeokuta, saying he was the one that asked her to come back to Ado-Ekiti. She narrated that when she came back; they jointly built a two-bedroom flat which they reside in.
On the issue of charm and being fetish, she explained that her husband was in support of her religion, saying he takes her to the Ifa temple in the morning and comes to pick her up in the evening and that she was told to worship Ifa and her husband also participated in the worship, insisting they worshipped Ifa together in her room.
Feyisola said when her husband started complaining about the Ifa issue, she returned it to the owner, who told her to worship it.
She denied being troublesome and told the Court that she gave her husband peace in the house but when she greets him, he will not answer her and also denied that her children were into internet fraud but said they are doing fine.
She told the Court that she does not want the divorce because she did not have relatives in Ado-Ekiti and had been begging the complainant because she wants both of them to train the children together.
The President of the Court, Mrs. Foluke Oyeleye, observed that the marriage had broken down irretrievably and consequently dissolved the marriage.
Oyeleye ordered that both the complainant and respondent are free to do as they please because the Court could not separate what was not in existence.
She ruled that though the parties had been cohabiting for 23 years, all the requirements of a valid marriage were absent in this relationship.
The Judge said that there was no marriage between the parties and they were free to go their separate ways.