21st January, 2019
Chief Ademola Odunade, the President of a Mapo Customary Court in Ibadan, on Monday dissolved the 16-year-old marriage between one Shakirat Conde and her husband, Ibrahim.
The dissolution was as a result of alleged threat to life and suspicion of “demonic possession.’’
Shakirat, a businesswoman, told the court that her husband, who hails from Guinea-Conakry, was threatening to kill her if she refused to move out of his home.
“My lord, immediately Ibrahim got married to his Guinean wife, he no longer saw anything good in me as a Nigerian.
“When he wanted to drive me out of his home, he brought a certain marabout to our house who informed him that I am a witch and that I was responsible for his new wife’s sickness.
“The marabout also misled him into believing that one of my daughters was demonic and needed to be delivered or she might become dangerous to the family.
“As a result, Ibrahim took the underage girl to far away Saki where the marabout kept her to suffer without discovering any evil spirit in her.
“As if that was not enough, Ibrahim started making life difficult for me by not fending for my needs and even started searching through my belongings for charms.
“Recently, he acquired travelling documents to take our two other children back to Guinea where his parents and relatives live without my consent.
“In fact, Ibrahim has ordered me to pack my property from his home.
“Worse still, Ibrahim is preventing me from doing my business as a registered miner because he is now sending hooligans to threaten me and drive my employees away from our mining sites.
“I committed my entire life to him when he started sleeping with me at the age of 16,but he has chosen to pay me with evil,” Shakirat said.
The respondent, who is also a miner, was absent in court.
The court’s bailiff informed the arbitrators that he had served Ibrahim notice on several occasions without his response.
After careful deliberations, Odunade put an end to the union and awarded custody of the three children to Shakirat.
He ordered Ibrahim to pay a monthly allowance of N15,000 for the children’s upkeep in addition to being responsible for their education and other welfare needs.
Odunade said that a criminal contempt charge would be instituted against the respondent if he refused to obey the court’s order.