“My husband flogs me at any slight opportunity and he does not have respect for me and my family,” Olajumoke Osaretin told an Igando customary court in Lagos State during the week.
Olajumoke had approached the court seeking an end to her five-year-old marriage over allegations of battery.
“Whenever he flogs me, he will then attempt to strangulate me, always threatening to kill me. He does not spare our children as he also beats them at will over any slight mistake,” she said.
The mother of two told the court that she developed high blood pressure over the issue.
“I lost appetite for food. I live under the fear of what he would one day do to me and my children. I have all sorts of scars on my body as a result of the beatings. My husband is callous and wicked, he drinks to stupor, and behaves abnormally. I want the dissolution of the marriage and want custody of my children because I don’t want them to live with their father,” she said.
Responding, her husband, Sunday Osaretin, however, pleaded with the court to beg his wife as he promised to turn over a new leaf
“I am sorry for all the wrongs I have done to my wife; I don’t want to lose her as I love her with a passion. Though, my wife is not exonerated from this problem between us, whenever we fight, she tears my clothes which normally makes me to beat her hard. She does not respect me, she abuses me as she likes and this makes me to beat her,” he said.
The respondent told the court that he had changed and would not beat his wife anymore.
President of the court, Mr Adegboyega Omilola, however, admonished the couple to keep the peace and ordered them to bring two members of their families for possible settlement.
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