Angered by his wife’s alleged adulterous acts, Joel Ocholi, on Monday approached an Igando Customary Court in Lagos State to end his 10-year-old marriage.
Ocholi accused his wife, Felicia, of adultery, saying she displayed her ex-boyfriend pictures in their room.
He said: “On several occasions, I have ordered her to remove the pictures and stopped calling the man but she refused.
“When I could no longer condone it, I removed those pictures and burnt them.
“Felicia started moving around with men when my business was no longer flourishing.”
The 45-year-old printer said his wife had been denying him sex for two years without reason.
He said that his wife returned the bride price to him, claiming he was not man enough and could no longer take care of her and that she wanted a divorce.
“She removed all our enlarged pictures hanged in the sitting room, our photo album and destroyed them. She also gathered all our uniform clothes and burnt them,” Ocholi said.
The petitioner described his wife as a heartless fellow, saying she was jubilating when his mother died and that she told him that he was the next person to die.
Ocholi said his wife was uncontrollable and that she wanted to be the man in the house.
He said: “She does things in her own way and does not take my advice.
“When our pastor came to us and begged us to lend him N2 million, I told our pastor in the presence of my wife that we do not have money.
“My wife went to borrow N1 million each from my brother and her colleague in the office and gave it to our pastor without my knowledge.
“I got to know when there was a fight between her and our pastor over the money.
“It is three years now, the money had not been paid.
“I am the one paying her debt in instalment to my brother.”
The petitioner pleaded that the court should end the marriage as he was no longer interested.
He said the love he once had for his wife had faded.
Responding to the allegations, Felicia, a 40-year-old business woman, denied having extramarital affairs but accused her husband of infidelity.
She said: “A woman brought a boy of three-year old to our house at 11pm, claiming my husband is the father and that she had come to take her rightful place but when I queried Joel, he said nothing.
“He borrowed money from me that he wanted to use it to do something important but later confessed that he used the money to rent an apartment for the woman.”
The mother of one said she returned the bride price because her husband wanted to kill her.
Felicia said: “My husband told me that he went to an herbalist to get something to put in my body that if I sleep with another man, I will die and that the herbalist advised him not to do it.
“That was why I returned the bride price because my life is no longer safe in his house.”
The respondent said she assisted her husband with a business but he never gave her a dime from the proceeds of the business, saying he did not provide for her and the only child of the marriage.
Felicia said her husband refused to leave his family house.
She said: “There was an agreement when we got married that after we build our house we will move out of his family house.
“We now built two houses of six flats in Lagos, yet Joel refused to leave.”
Felicia urged the court to grant her husband’s wish for the dissolution of their marriage.
After listening to the submissions of the couple, the Court’s President, Adeniyi Koledoye, advised the parties to maintain peace and adjourned the case to June 13 for further hearing.
Follow The Eagle Online Channel on WhatsApp
