‘My husband idles away while I hustle to get food’

The president of the Oja-Oba Customary Court, Mapo, Ibadan, Chief Ademola Odunade, yesterday dissolved the 10-year-old marriage between Olaide Adedokun and Nafisat over the former’s alleged inability to provide for his family. Odunade held that it had been proven to the court beyond reasonable doubts that Adedokun was unable to provide basic needs for his […]

The president of the Oja-Oba Customary Court, Mapo, Ibadan, Chief Ademola Odunade, yesterday dissolved the 10-year-old marriage between Olaide Adedokun and Nafisat over the former’s alleged inability to provide for his family.

Odunade held that it had been proven to the court beyond reasonable doubts that Adedokun was unable to provide basic needs for his family as alleged by his wife and thereby granted Nafisat’s consent to her husband’s wish that the marriage be dissolved.

The arbitrator ordered the petitioner to pay the sum of N10,000 monthly as feeding allowance to the children, and must cater for their school fees and health care, whenever the need arises.

Adedokun had approached the court to end the marital union between him and Nafisat, saying she was stubborn and was always bent on doing things he detested.

“I told her to stop her music job but she insisted that was her preferred job. I enrolled her to learn a trade but she absconded. She doesn’t know anything about music, yet she insisted on doing the job.

“Whenever she travelled for her job, I was the one caring for our children. I used to care for her before my business collapsed. I have married another wife to care for my children,” he said.

But the respondent told the court that her husband had not been responsible for the welfare of his immediate family, adding, “he eats without thinking of the future of the children.”

She said, “I don’t want to marry him again because he lacks fatherly features. He has a lackadaisical attitude. I was the only one caring for the family.

“At a point when we had an accommodation problem, I sourced for money to rent an apartment when my husband was not ready to do anything. My children won’t eat if I was not at home.

“I had to beg my parents for money many times to care for my children and even him. We only eat out of the foodstuff I hawk. He is a heavy drinker. He has friends who smoke Indian hemp. I don’t want my children to live with him.”