BY AGNES NWORIE, ABAKALIKI
A mother of three children, Mrs. Blessed Fawole has dragged her husband to a High Court sitting in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State capital for refusing to adequately take care of her and the children despite that he has a lucrative job.
Blessed, who has been married to her husband, Dr. Stephen Fawole since August 20, 2016 at Christ Evangelical Family Nigeria Church Lokoja, Kogi State, in a suit marked HAB/3D/2023, told the court that each time she demanded for sexual intercourse with Stephen, he would ask her to buy gifts for him as condition for making love with her.
She added that Stephen would further compel her to kneel down and beg him with the gifts before carrying out the sexual intercourse, which she described as her husband’s conjugal right.
According to her, since she instituted the matter in court on November 20, 2021, two weeks after the birth of their third child, cohabitation between her and Stephen had ceased.
Presenting some evidence to the court to back up her claims, the petitioner said since the marriage to the respondent, she has never known peace. Blessed accused Stephen of being very temperamental and violent, adding that he beats her without any serious reason.
She said the respondent made caricatures of her, called her names such as ‘goat’ and ‘useless slave’ whereas the respondent regarded himself as ‘Lord’.
“He (Stephen) always insists that before he would have sex with me, I must entice or kneel down and beg him with gifts; this has always been the case until we got our last two children,” the petitioner told the court.
She, therefore, prayed the court for “order of a decree of judicial separation on the ground that the marriage had broken down irretrievably, going by the facts that the respondent had behaved in such a way the petitioner cannot reasonably be expected to live with him.”
The petitioner sought custody of the three minor children of the marriage till they become adults.
Counsel to the petitioner, Ejem Nwokposi urged the court to grant Blessed’s requests.
“An order of court for the sum of N150, 000.00 only every month to the petitioner against the respondent for the care and maintenance of the petitioner and cost of education of the children in the marriage,” the suit reads in part.
Having found the respondent guilty as charged, the presiding judge, Justice Chinyere Ken-Eze approved the separation of the couple, awarded custody of the children to their mother since they are under aged and ordered Stephen to make available the sum of N120,000 to the petitioner on monthly basis for up-keep of the children.
