“I can only summarize my experience with Tunde as one characterized by agony, battery, shame, disrespect, hunger and lots more.
“Anytime there was a minor disagreement between Tunde and me, he would strip me naked in the neighbourhood and unleash mayhem on me.
“The last one he did this month was when he inflicted serious injury on one of our daughters with a broom.
“After beating up the little girl, I had to start removing pieces of the broomsticks that had penetrated her skin,” she said.
This is the marital experience of Nike Alufoso. She was married to Tunde Alufoso for 20 years but has known no peace ever since. Even though things have been bad for a long time, Nike stayed put thinking that things would get better.
Like a typical Nigerian woman who has been taught to do everything possible to make her marriage work, Nike Alufoso endured maltreatment, assault, battery and humiliation at the hands of her husband for 20 years.
But when she could no longer take the battery and pains anymore as her husband extended the ill treatment to her mother, Nike filed for divorce. Her marriage was dissolved recently but the details were chilling.
In her earlier statement before the court, Nike explained that Tunde, her husband, was fast sniffing life out of her through battery as well as assaulting her mother.
“My lord had I known that there was more to living with Tunde as a wife, maybe I would have had a rethink 20 years ago when I chose him as a husband.”
She also told the court that her former husband beat her mother when she queried him on why he maltreated her granddaughter. Nike also added that he was not responsible as he does not cater for the welfare and education of their children.
In her words: “In fact, he threatened that if he sees me or any member of my family in court, he will definitely kill us today. I no longer want to have anything to do with Tunde, please separate us,” Nike pleaded.
Admitting the divorce suit, Tunde, however, did not deny most of the allegations of battery and violence leveled against him.
He prayed the court to grant him custody of the two children instead. As usual, he blamed someone else for his misbehaviour. he blamed the victim for suffering battery and violence.
He refused to take responsibility for his inhumane actions towards his ex wife, he blamed her mother instead. He said that his ex wife and her mother teamed up against him.
He said: “My lord, Nike’s mother is the major problem in our union because she keeps misleading her against my wish. Every now and then, Nike’s mother is always loitering around our house. It is true that I beat my child, but it was because I saw blood flowing out from her private part.”
He added that Nike did not inform him on time that their daughter had already started menstruating and he thought that someone somewhere had deflowered her. Tunde said that if it is Nike’s choice to leave, let it be.
Chief Ademola Odunade, President of a Mapo Customary Court in Ibadan, Oyo State, dissolved a 20-year- marriage between Nike Alufoso and Tunde Alufoso over threats to life and cruelty.
Odunade held that whenever a marital union became incompatible, the court would have no other option than to terminate it.
“Therefore, the union between Nike and Tunde has ceased to be, henceforth, in the interest of peaceful living,” he said.
The president granted the custody of the two children produced by the union to Nike while he said Tunde should pay a monthly feeding allowance of N5,000 for their upkeep.
The court also said that the defendant should, in addition, be responsible for the education and other welfare of the children.
