A 40-year-old Information Technologist, Samuel Bankole, on Tuesday told an Igando Customary court in Lagos State that his father-in-law was responsible for his leaving his matrimonial home.
Bankole, who was responding to a divorce suit filed by his wife, Iyabo, said his father in-law forced him out because he was unable to pay the house rent.
He said: “My wife always pays the rent because I am not buoyant enough, but the last rent was paid by my father-in-law who had been threatening me to vacate the house or commit suicide.
“On that fateful day, he came with a thug, beat me and threw my belongings out.
“He also arrested me.
“I passed a night in the cell before my father came to bail me.”
The respondent said his wife, with whom he had three children, was having extra marital affairs.
Bankole said: “My wife cheats on me.
“I read her chat on her phone and I discovered she was having an affair with a man.
“I confronted her and showed her their conversation but she could not give me a satisfactory answer.”
Bankole also claimed that his wife always curses him, saying he hears her during the midnight swearing that it would not be well with him.
He begged the court not to grant his wife’s wish as he was still in love with her.
The petitioner, Iyabo Bankole, 32, a trader had sought for the dissolution of her five-year-old marriage over lack of care and threat to her life.
She said her husband was an irresponsible husband and father.
She said: “My husband is working but he always tell me he does not have money.
“I have been the one paying the house rent since the inception of our marriage and also pay the children’s school fees.
“When the rent of the two-bedroom flat I first rented was about to be due, my husband disappeared from the house with all his belongings to an unknown destination and I was pregnant then.
“I didn’t have money so I had to sell my late mother’s property to pay for my antenatal and to feed myself.
“I was in the hospital for six days because I could not pay.
“I was released after my father came to pay the bill and I stayed with my father for nine months before he rented another flat for me.
“After my father rented the flat, my husband came back to the house.”
Iyabo also told the court that her husband threatened to kill her.
She said her husband once tied her nose and mouth with cloth, adding that it took the intervention of neighbours to save her.
Iyabo said: “There was a day his girlfriends came to my house around 11pm to beat me up.
“After I recovered from the beating, I came out to take air when I saw those girls with my husband outside the gate chatting and drinking.
“My husband also beat me whenever he sees me talking with male customers or whenever he reads my chat with a male friend on phone.
“All the scars on my body was as result of his constant beating.”
The petitioner pleaded with the court to dissolve the marriage, saying her life was at risk and wanted to live and cater for her children.
The court President, Adegboyega Omilola, adjourned the case till November 4 for further hearing.
NAN.