The president of a Mapo customary court, Ibadan, Chief Ademola Odunade, on Monday dissolved a 13-year-old marriage between the respondent, Isamotu Ademola, and his wife, Kafayat, over an allegation by the woman that her husband was plotting to use her and their four children for money ritual.
Odunade held that he was dissolving the union in the interest of peaceful co-existence.
He awarded custody of the children produced by the union to Kafayat and directed Ademola to be paying N20,000 monthly as the children’s feeding allowance.
Kafayat, a resident of the Ogbere-Agugu area in Ibadan, had told the court, “Before his desperate attempt to use us for ritual came to my notice, some of Ademola’s friends had warned me to closely take care of my children because they were aware of his plots to become rich overnight.
“He started taking the children out to unknown places, but nothing happened to the children then. When Ademola observed that I was monitoring him closely, he switched attention to me, bringing home all sorts of charms and concoctions.
“Shortly before I abandoned his home in August, he took his bath with a specially prepared black soap for one month. At the end of that, he made efforts to sleep with me, but I prevented him and he cursed me for spoiling his ritual effort.
“Since then, Ademola has been threatening he would take custody of the children and use them for anything he wishes.”
Ademola was for the third time absent in court to respond to the allegations Kafayat levelled against him.
The bailiff told the arbitrator that he had on several occasions served hearing notices on the respondent, but that Ademola deliberately ignored court’s order.
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