In Agege, a Customary Court in Lagos has dissolved the 18-year-old union between Mr and Mrs Nurudeen Lawal.
The Court’s President, Pa Adekunle Williams, ruled that the parties ceased to be husband and wife and free to go their separate ways.
The petitioner, Mrs Mariam Lawal, had sought the dissolution of her marriage over the long separation between them.
“We have been separated for seven years but whenever he sees me in public, he embarrasses me in the presence of my friends, especially the opposite sex. Despite the fact that he had married another woman, he doesn’t want to see me with another man. There was a time he assaulted a male friend and tore his clothes. He is very troublesome and I need freedom,” she said.
The mother of two said she has been paying the schools fees of her daughter who lives with her. The boy lives with his father.
Lawal, 48, said they were separated for five years and not seven years.
He said his daughter, who lives with his wife, was not going to school.
But the petitioner presented her daughter’s school receipts and reports cards.
Williams further ruled that the children’s education and medical expenses should be the parties’ responsibility and ordered the respondent to pay N5,000 monthly for his daughter’s upkeep.
The union produced two children aged 12 and 17.
The Nation
