My wife slaps me for the slightest misunderstanding, the man seeking divorce narrates in court.

An auto mechanic, Olumayowa Afolabi, on Tuesday urged an Ile-Tuntun customary court in Ibadan to dissolve his 17-year marriage to his ex-wife, Mojisola, for disrespect, threat of life and frequent assaults.

In his testimony in court, the petitioner, who lives on the Odeyan-Akanran road in Ibadan, said that he was no longer willing to continue in the relationship with his wife to avoid the embarrassment of her constant slapping.

“My lord, if someone had told me that Mojisola would turn out to be hitting me, I would have argued that it was impossible.

“It all started in 2018 when she first gave me a deafening slap when I challenged the bad role she played in the fight between four young teachers who live in our house.

“Since then, Mojisola doesn’t hesitate to slap me whenever there is a problem between the two of us.

“In fact, she got so used to slapping me that she even did it in the presence of her younger brothers, who complained about it themselves,” he said.

Olumayowa said his misconduct reached a climax on January 1, during the church cross service, when Mojisola humiliated him by pushing him away in front of the congregation when the spouses exchanged greetings.

“Worse yet, she stripped me naked and hit me like hell around May because I prevented her from going out late at night to pick up her phone.

“Mojisola has repeatedly shown countless times that she no longer loves me and as a result denies my conjugal rites,” Olumayowa said.

However, Mojisola prayed to the court that she would not dissolve the union, adding that her close friend, who was in a loving relationship with her husband, was the cause of the breakdown in their marriage.

She also denied having slapped Olumayowa.

“Our family and church friend Esther Oluremi, whom my husband hired to manage our poultry farm, is the one causing the discontent in our marital home.

“The woman sent her husband packing from their marital home and when we visited her on January 1 of this year, she was in the living room when Olumayowa went to her room and I saw him putting makeup powder on her face.

“That was the reason I pushed Olumayowa into the church.

“He has also given custody of our children to Oluremi,” Mojisola explained.

In her counterclaim, Oluremi said that Mojisola, her friend, was a pathological liar.

She claimed that the poultry farm was jointly owned by her and Afolabi’s family and that the children lived with her because they were studying with their own children.

When passing sentence, Chief Henry Agbaje, argued that the damage caused to the relationship was irreparable, hence the dissolution.

He awarded custody of the first two children produced by the union to the petitioner and the last to the defendant.

The arbitrator also ordered Olumayowa to pay 4,000 naira as the girl’s monthly food allowance, in addition to taking responsibility for her education and other basic needs.