…My mom always uses false stories about my dad to get men
Juliana Francis
It has often been said that when two elephants fight, it is the ground that suffers.
This has become true of a couple, who are so fixated on their marital disputes and outsmarting each other that they forget the attendant effect of these fights on their children.
The couple, Innocent and Jennifer, who married over 20 years ago and have four children have been at loggerheads for years, with both going to the police stations.
The issue has become so intense that the husband, Innocent, believed that the wife was working with some police personnel attached to D10 at the Lagos State Criminal Intelligence and Investigation Department (SCIID), Panti, Yaba, to undo him.
Since the case started, Innocent has been detained by D10 for four days and would later be charged to court and remanded in prison.
The first time he was detained by D10 for four days, the police accused him of defilement. The police said that he married Jennifer when she was a minor, and thus committed a crime of defilement.
Members of the Advocates for Children and Vulnerable Persons Network, (ACVPN) who had stepped into the matter, seeking justice for Innocent, worried that the police were victimising him.
The human rights organisation reminded the police that the marriage was over 20 years and as of that period, there was no Child Rights Law.
The Police were also reminded that Innocent married his wife according to customary law. This was even as Innocent insisted that his wife was in her early twenties when they got married.
Jennifer, surprisingly said that she was young when she got married, but didn’t mention her age to the reporter.
However, the wife’s elder sister had told the police that Innocent married Jennifer when she was 18 years old.
When the defilement allegation wobbled and crumbled, police again charged Innocent with domestic violence, insisting that Jennifer had pictorial evidence of her husband’s battering.
Securitynewsalert.com spoke with the couple and came out with different versions of the story.
The husband said trouble started after he discovered that his wife was having sexual affairs with different men. His grown children confirmed the affairs, mentioning names of the men, he said.
He said he could no longer pretend that all was well and that according to his tradition, he couldn’t continue to have sex with her while she was involved with other men because it could cost him many things.
Jennifer on the other hand alleged that Innocent used to beat her, starved her of food and sex, and also refused to refund money borrowed from her.
While the bickering lingers, with the matter now in two courts, their four children are not finding the situation funny.
While the two eldest children are staying with Innocent, Jennifer went away with the two younger children.
The couple’s eldest child, Ifunaya, who is in her early 20s, said she was sick and tired of the quarrels and bickering. She wanted the bitterness and acrimony to stop.
She also said that available facts showed that her parents could no longer live together as husband and wife, but she desperately wished both could settle their differences and move on.
The lady, who said that she will be 21 years old in June, remarked on the pictorial evidence presented by her mom to the police, proving battering, which led to her father being remanded in prison custody.
She said: “I don’t even know where my mom got that picture from. She and our father do not speak to each other, let alone to even quarrel. In the picture, she was on a bed, and I can tell you that the bedsheet on the bed does not belong to us, the house is not ours! I don’t know where or how she got that picture. And please just forget about that doctor’s report she presented.
“She said that my dad beat her on June 22, while my birthday was on June 24, but I can tell you that there was no issue because they didn’t even speak to each other.
“I don’t like what is going on. I wish my mom can stop. My parents are both different people. My mom is lying, and I really don’t like it. I want them to stop and then talk to each other.
“The problem between my mom and dad had been on for years and it is because she started moving with some women she met in church. My dad had only touched my mom twice and that was more than six- or seven-years years ago, and it was because of her affairs. I don’t understand why the police in that D10 Panti are dragging our dad.
“The first time, police detained my dad for four days. We were in school when we heard the news. It affected us and we had to leave campus and rushed home. We couldn’t return to school for more than five days and just when we thought everything had settled, the police came again, arrested him, and remanded him in prison. I don’t understand what is going on and why these police people are dragging our dad.”
The young lady has other things to say and below are words…
“I don’t even know where to start but let me give a summary. All this mainly started when my mum started making friends with people she shouldn’t make friends with, they introduced her to men.
“There was a time when my mom brought home a man and it was when my dad travelled to Abuja. The man stayed three days and slept in my dad’s room. When my dad came back, he found out about it. Naturally, I thought it was someone that my dad knew because why else will he sleep in his room?
“Back then I was young, so I didn’t know any better. I told him about it only to find out that he didn’t know the man.
“She didn’t talk to me, didn’t want to associate with me, and said things a mother shouldn’t say to her child. So, because of that, I started keeping quiet any time I saw her with anyone.
“She then started bringing men to the house anytime dad was not around, not only when he travels, even when he just goes out to work. There were close to or more than five men she brought here.
“One went by the name Dave. He bought us things, took us out, then she would say he is her friend. We didn’t say anything and not long after, she brought another by the name of Emmanuel.
“We have seen her kissing this man in the parlour, there was a time they even pecked each other’s lip in front of us. Then they also broke up, there’s another one she normally calls Odogwu.
“My dad didn’t know about these, but he knew she was making friends with people and men she shouldn’t make friends with, so my dad told her many time to start her life over and live as a mother should, but she won’t listen, instead she started doing more outside.
“She would say she was going out and instead she goes to parties organised by those groups of women. She would say she was going to stay at a woman’s place called Bunmi. Every time my dad asks, she would say she was going to see Bunmi.
“Meanwhile she goes to stay in one of her men’s places. How Do I know? Cause when she comes back, she shows us her phone saying, ‘I went to Odogwu’s house yesterday and his house is big,’ kind of stuff like that is what she used to say.
“Most of this stuff was the reason she and my dad fought then, he wanted her to focus on home.
“It was because of these things she and my dad usually had issues and when she didn’t stop, he stopped communicating with her as a wife since then, she had been looking for ways for them to have issues, but my dad didn’t give in, and this is like five to six years ago.
“I’ve found chats, and porn groups in her phone so many times. And it’s the same phone Divine, Wonderful and we the children use to play games, so I see these things.
“There was a time when my dad said she should throw her first SIM away so she could insert the new SIM with family and good friends.
“She broke her old SIM and started again with the new sim, my dad tried everything to make her focus. Even when my dad was an Uber driver when he didn’t have money at all, she was going out to stay at her so-called “friend’s place” for days and before you know it, she started taking Divine and me to these parties.
“I started seeing more of what goes on here. Parties of married women with husbands and children indulging in frivolous activities with other men that are nowhere near their husbands.
“This kept going on for long that I started questioning myself, asking, ‘Don’t those men know that she has a husband or what?’
“My questions were answered when my mum started following a man named Promise. It was during this time I found out my younger sister was dating a guy called Kenny.
“I didn’t know when they started dating or the state of their relationship, but I told my sister to break up with him, she’s still very young.
“She said she will break up with him and I said okay. Promise started coming around more to our house, and took us out sometimes. My mom told us how he really loved her.
“Now, during the time we went to school, and we were in 100 level 2nd Semester, this Promise guy started calling and telling us how he will take good care of us when mom becomes his, and that we should not worry.
“He said that our dad will not be in their way. I was confused and asked when she told him such, he said, ‘How can your father be so wicked, leaving his children in his wife’s hands, and traveling for years without sending money for you guys?’
“He said that it was only my mom that paid our school fees, house rent, feeding, buys us what we need, that he will deal with our dad, and that he was not a man.
“This was around the time my dad opened a restaurant for her. She kept telling us that she went around to beg for money for the restaurant and that my dad only gave her N150,000 to start a business only for my dad to show us the bank statement of where he sent her more than N1 million for her to start her business.
“Frequently, when we were in school, Promises will call us and start saying how he will take care of us, and more blasphemy against my dad. It was painful to hear. Mind you, my dad goes to work every day and comes back every day.
“He is the only one that pays any single thing related to our school fees, dues, rents, everything he pays it. But that’s how I got to find out that my mom uses false stories about my dad to get these men.
“He will tell them about how my dad always hits her when he finally returns after years of not coming home. Lies upon lies. In school, if we ask her for money, she immediately tells Promise, and he will send it instead of her.
“Around this time in school, my brother and I found out that our younger sister has an iPhone, we asked how she got it, and she said mom gave it to her. We didn’t say anything.
“We found out that this Promise is staying longer than the others. When we went home for the holiday I heard more news from Uzochi and Divine about how Mom normally brings Promise to the house, how she continues going to the man’s place for days.
“During her birthday party this year, she celebrated it in her restaurant, and Uzochi and I went to help with work. That party was just a stupid party. The same women dance with men that aren’t their husbands, smoking, and more. Before we left for school, they fought, not physically, but shouting and it was because of my mom again.
“What caused the fight? My dad gave my mom money to pay for my sister’s school fees, WAEC and NECO, along with Uzochi WAEC and NECO money and Wonderful’s school fees. My mum didn’t pay for their NECO and kept the money.
“After my sister was done with WAEC, she already knew that she didn’t do well and didn’t write anything in most of the subjects. So now she needed to write NECO to make up for it.
“She went to meet my mom and asked her for NECO money, my mom said my dad didn’t give her NECO money and that she should leave her alone. This was not the first time my dad has paid WAEC and money, so he knows the amount and all.
“My dad told her that he gave my mom the money that she should meet her. My sister repeated what my mom said to my dad. They argued about it when she came back from work that day. my mom was shouting even when she knew that she was wrong. She said our dad should pay another money.
“My dad showed us the bank statement once again and we saw that he gave her everything. But she still kept shouting and insulting and went close to him on purpose so he would touch her but he just left the whole matter. My dad gave Divine another NECO money but instead of paying, Divine used the money again.
“When my mom found out, she was not happy with Divine, she said that Divine didn’t give her, her share of the money.
“After this fight, the next few days or week, I and my brother returned to school and it was inside the bus on our way to school that my dad called and said that my mom has taken Wonderful and the car, and ran away.
“Before all these things, when she was bringing men home, sometimes she drives different cars home, and she will say her friend gave her. Making herself known in the whole street. Someone even called me on the street one day, asking if that woman was my mother.
“There’s also a little girl she brings home sometimes, we don’t know whose child she is.”
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