A Nigerian woman, Mrs Toyin Bello, has petitioned a Customary Court in Ibadan to dissolve her 16-year-old marriage to her husband, Dotun Bello.
According to Toyin who has been married to her husband for sixteen years, she wants the marriage dissolved on grounds of 10 years of sex starvation, lack of productivity, and irresponsibility.
Toyin told the court on Tuesday, December 15, that she compromised her religious morals to conceive for another man to save her husband from ridicule when she found out he couldn’t impregnate her any more.
She further stated that about six years after the death of the child she had for Dotun, he refused to make sexual advances to her and made worried.
In her words,
“Then, I started running from pillar to post; seeking spiritual and other available solutions towards getting pregnant for him.
“Dotun himself went to the hospital, but he never showed me the result of the test conducted on him in spite of my numerous demands.
“When Dotun was not at home one day, I saw the result where he hid it and it read: ‘unproductive due to low count discharge.
“With age not on my side any longer, I did the needful by secretly getting pregnant for another man so as to make him happy.
“Immediately after delivery, Dotun started misbehaving as he became grossly irresponsible and hostile to me and to the child.
“In fact, for the past 10 years now, he hasn’t slept on the same bed with me let alone touch me and I’m already feeling the trauma.
“Despite Dotun’s disaffection and irresponsibility to me, he is also taking steps to kill me so as to inherit my house and claim the child that doesn’t belong to him.
“That is the reason why I have fled home to start sleeping in our church at Asi area in Ibadan.
“My lord, I cannot continue to waste my time with Dotun, age is no longer on my side; please dissolve our union”.
However, her husband Dotun in his defense countered the lawsuit. He alleged that contrary to his wife claim, it was her who constantly denied him of his conjugal rites.
He admitted he once had a low count discharge, but pointed out that he had since taken care of himself.
“My lord, Toyin denied me my conjugal rite most of the times, usually complaining that she was tired havinh worked all through the day.
“In fact, there was a particular night I broke the door into her bedroom, but she was shouting that I wanted to rape her.
“The only mistake I made was that I didn’t report the incident to her relatives,” he said.
The case has been adjourned to December, 29th. The Court President, Chief Henry Agbaje also asked the couple to come with more evidence to substantiate their claims.
