‘I fled my home for my wife and her lover’

The prayer of a businessman, Solomon Brown, before a customary court sitting at Oja-Oba, Ibadan, that his nine-yearold marriage to his wife, Folakemi, be dissolved over threat to his life, has been answered.

Brown alleged that Folakemi was always threatening to stab him to death with a knife or broken bottle.

The court heard from the petitioner that after his wife gave birth to their first child, a boy, he received a call from a man he described as a professor that the child belonged to him (professor).

He added that the caller threatened him with death if he refused to leave the baby and his mother for him. When the man stopped threatening to kill him, he said, his wife started hers with threats over what he called trivial issues.

Brown told the court he was compelled to leave the house and the entire Bodija axis, Ibadan, where he was residing with Folakemi in matrimony “for the professor and my wife so they will not kill me.”

He urged the court to issue an order that would restrict Folakemi from chasing him around for the safety of his life.

The respondent, whom Daily Trust learnt the bailiff had served a court summons several times, was not in court to defend herself on the allegations levelled against her.

The president of the court, Chief Ademola Odunade, dissolved the marriage and ordered Brown to be paying the sum of N8,000 monthly as feeding allowance for the two children the marriage produced. Chief Odunade, however, allowed the defendant custody of the children.

He also ordered her to abstain from anything that has to do with the plaintiff and should rather approach the court if she has any complaint against him.