A 21-year-old marriage between a Lagos-based Pastor, Joshua Ibeneme and his wife, Uzoamaka, has been dissolved by an Igando Customary Court in Lagos, on grounds of adultery.
After several mediations by the court and family intervention failed, the court, therefore, dissolved the relationship as requested by the petitioner.
Mr Akin Akinniyi, the court president, who delivered the judgment, said the petitioner, Ibeneme, was adamant in spite of the mediation by the court and family intervention.
“Since the petitioner insisted on divorce after several interventions, the court is, therefore, left with no option, but to grant him his wish and pronounce the union dissolved.
“The court, hereby, pronounces the marriage between Pastor Joshua Ibeneme and Mrs. Uzoamaka Ibeneme dissolved today.
“Both of you will henceforth cease to be husband and wife, each of you should go on his or her separate ways unmolested. The court wishes both of you well in your future endeavour.
“Any squabble between both you from now on shall be treated as criminal and any violation of this judgment will be regarded as contempt of court and will attract imprisonment without option of fine,” Akinniyi ruled.
Earlier, the petitioner, a 53-year-old, had approached the court to end his 21-year-old marriage to his wife, Uzoamaka, who he said, was “messing around with his church members.
“My wife had sexual affair with two of my church members, a deacon and a bishop. Both of them were telling my other members that they slept with my wife because she enticed them.
“Whenever I return from a trip, my last born always tells me that men came to pick and drop my wife. Even God told me to divorce her or else she will destroy my ministry,” he claimed.
The petitioner said that his wife denied him sex for five years.
“My wife starved me of sex for more than five years; whenever I want to sleep with her, she would give one excuse or the other and in fact, she has moved out of my room to a separate room.
“But she gives it to my members freely,” the pastor said.
However, the respondent, Uzoamaka, denied having sex with church members, but accused her husband of infidelity.
“I never slept with the two men, who claimed that they slept with me, they just wanted to tarnish my image, my husband is dating the wife of the deacon”.
According to her, the pastor calls her derogatory names in the public such as “prostitute”.
