Court separates clerics over dishonesty allegation

A Badagry, Lagos, customary court has dissolved the marriage union between two clerics over allegations of dishonesty and splitting the church. The court president, Sikirudeen Adekola, while dissolving the marriage yesterday, said that it was glaring that the marital relationship between the petitioner, Pastor Samson Babarinde and the respondent, Elizabeth, had broken down irretrievably. Babarinde […]

A Badagry, Lagos, customary court has dissolved the marriage union between two clerics over allegations of dishonesty and splitting the church.

The court president, Sikirudeen Adekola, while dissolving the marriage yesterday, said that it was glaring that the marital relationship between the petitioner, Pastor Samson Babarinde and the respondent, Elizabeth, had broken down irretrievably.

Babarinde insisted on the dissolution of the union, as he complained that his wife was keeping the company of one Mrs Koledoye, whose husband he said she was comparing him with to the extent it triggered off trouble in their ministry when the woman joined their church.

The petitioner alleged that the respondent turned their biological children against him, and was always quarrelling with him “without mercy” for him and the ministry.

He stressed that his anger against his wife was that she caused a division within the church and did not respect the council of evangelists who intervened in the matter.

Forty six-year-old Elizabeth narrated she met the petitioner in 1995 and after their wedding, her husband sent her to a Bible seminary before they established their own church in 2001.

Saying her husband suffered from a bad temperament, she, however, pleaded for non-dissolution of the marriage.

In its judgment, the court ordered the petitioner to be paying the monthly maintenance allowance of the children in custody of his former wife.