“My wife is always threatening to kill herself; she has attempted suicide on four occasions,’’ a 45-year-old carpenter, Waheed Tiamiyu, told an Igando Customary Court in Lagos on Thursday. He said that his wife, Bukola, with whom he had three children, in their 13 years of marriage, was in the habit of threatening to kill herself.
“She once threatened to jump down from our balcony, I dragged her back and started begging her. “The second was when she wanted to drink kerosine, the third was when she came to my room with a belt tied around her neck, she climbed a chair and wanted to tie the belt to the ceiling fan. “The fourth was when she wanted to fall into a well, I wondered what will happen if I have not intervened by begging her not to kill herself on each of these four instances,’’ he said.
The petitioner also accused his wife of infidelity. “There is a particular man that always called my wife, he can call 20 times a day. I secretly saved the number from my wife’s phone without her knowledge. “Whenever I asked my wife who the guy was, she always tells me that the guy is her sister’s boyfriend. “I called her sister and she denied knowing the man nor the phone number. “I later investigated and I discovered that her lover is a powerful person.
“Please, dissolve this marriage, I am not ready to die now,’’ he told the court. According to him, his wife does not care for him, to the extent that she cooked his food in different pots and gave him bad food, while she eats good food. “My wife cooks my food and her own food separately. She will put assorted meat in her pot of soup and cook a shoddy soup for me. “She also refused to wash my clothes, anytime I gave her my clothes to wash, she always tells me to give them to my elder wife to wash,’’ he said.
Tiamiyu said that his wife was a good fighter, who she fights over unimportant issues. In her reaction, Bukola said that she only attempted suicide twice. “I attempted suicide because my husband wanted to send me packing and I didn’t want to leave my children because I love them,’’ she said. The mother of four said that she used to give her husband good food, whenever he dropped good money for food. She said that she was not dating the man as her husband claimed, but that he was only a friend.
Bukola, however, consented to the dissolution of the marriage, saying she too was no longer interested in it. The president of the court, Mr Adegboyega Omilola, ordered the couple to come along with three family members each, for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). Omilola adjourned the case until June 28, for continuation of hearing.
