By Kayode Olabanji
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“My lord, I still love my wife, please save my marriage. I have done everything possible to appease her. “

The day she claimed to have caught me with a woman, she tore my clothes. My wife almost cut off my penis so that I will not have access to women again.

This was the testimony of a middle-aged man, Mr Peter Balogun, in his defence, in a divorce suit filed against him by his wife of 18 years.

The plaintiff, Mrs Janet Balogun, had approached the Grade B Customary Court, sitting at Oke-Eda, Akure, seeking for the dissolution of her 18-year-old marriage with her estranged husband.

She had claimed that the man beats her constantly, while he does not care for her.

Other grounds of dissolution include, false allegations, public assault, threatening her life with broken bottle, no trust and no more love.

He said “My Lord, I caught my husband red handed, sleeping with our neighbour on our matrimonial bed. It was not the first time this man has been sleeping around with different women.

“That was how he slept with the teacher coaching our children and our church member. He even slept with one of the choristers and he claim to be an elder in the church.

According to her, the marriage is blessed with four children.

The plaintiff, when recounting her ordeal, before the court, said her husband always complained that she is sleeping around with men in the streets.

“He will not allow me to have rest of mind. To my surprise, we have been living together when situation was still very bad and we managed ourselves without disagreement. I keep wondering why things these are happening, when things are getting better.

“I sold my father’s property to care for the family up to date. He has nothing. I made him who he is today.

“Now I have become someone he does not want to see, to the extent that he brought a woman to our matrimonial home. It’s unfortunate, she said.

” He sent me out of the house, I built with my money, because he wanted to bring in another woman.

” He took the documents of my father’s land to obtain a loan without my consent. And we were both searching for the documents at home. “When I got to know, he started quarreling with me and threatened to beat me and stripped me naked. Then, I decided to leave the house to avoid any casualty.

However, the defendant, Peter, who denied all the allegations leveled against him, said he was not a whore monger.