by Musa Abdullahi & Agency Reports
A 55- year-old retired civil servant, Mr Emmanuel Osuya, has asked an Igando Customary Court, Lagos, to dissolve his 32-year-old marriage over alleged battering by his wife. Osuya told the court on Wednesday that his wife, Abigeal Osuya, 50, had turned him into a punching bag.
He said she beat him on any slight provocation. Osuya told the court that his wife always threatened his life through battery that he was afraid she may kill him one day. “My wife wants to kill me; she beat me almost every day with dangerous weapons. On three occasions, she broke my leg, preventing me from going out for days,’’ he said.
Osuya also accused his wife of turning his children against him, thereby making them to hate him. “Abigeal succeeded in creating enmity between me and my children, she tells them false and damaging stories about me in order to hate me. “So my children only care for her by sending her money and other items every month, without extending their love to me, they always ignore me as if I do not exist,’’ Osuya said.
The petitioner described his wife as a thief. He said that she always stole his money, rendering him financially broke. “I cannot keep money at home again because my wife will steal it. “ She acted as if she is not always satisfied with the money I give her in spite of the fact that my children always send her money every month,’’ the petitioner said.
Osuya said that Abigeal always starved him of food. He appealed to the court to dissolve the marriage, saying that “I am no longer interested in the marriage, I don’t want to die now, more so that I am out of love’’. Abigeal denied all the allegations. The mother of five said that she had never beaten her husband since the day she married him.
She said that it was her husband that always beat her. “It was my husband that always beat me on any slight provocation, I have never beaten him,” she said. The respondent also said that she had never stolen her husband’s money. Abigeal said that she used to cook for her husband wherever he gave her money for food.
She asked the court not to grant her husband’s prayer. “I am still in love with him,’’ she said. The Court President, Mr Hakeem Oyekan, adjourned the case till April 30 for further hearing.
