Court Dismisses Divorce Suit Despite Proof Of Maltreatment

Aishatu Adamu, a housewife, will have to stay put in her tumultuous marriage following the verdict of a Bauchi Upper Sharia Court to decline her request for the dissolution of her union with her husband, Umar Audu.

Ekohotblog reports that Adamu had approached the court and asked it to dissolve her marriage on the ground of maltreatment by her husband.

She said that she could no longer withstand the maltreatment meted out to her by her husband who allegedly instructed her own children to curse and abuse her.

According to Aishatu, her husband often recorded the curses and abuses hurled at her by the children and played it to her hearing, adding that she was irritated and humiliated by this.

The respondent, Audu agreed to the dissolution of the union between them.

Delivering judgment in the case, the Sharia judge, Malam Bello Mohammed Sambo, refused to grant the prayer of the plaintiff to end the matrimony.

The court hinged its verdict to reject the request of the wife on the consensus reached by the two guardians of the couple.

According to Malam Sambo, the couple’s guardian suggested that both husband and wife would forgive each other and continue to leave peacefully as a couple.

The judge stated that the guardians’ resolution followed the directive of the court, asking them to go and discuss and come up with a resolution on whether the marriage should be terminated or not in line with Islamic principles of amicable reconciliation.

He, therefore, directed the plaintiff to go back to her matrimonial home.

Reacting to the court’s decision while speaking with journalists, counsel for the plaintiff, Barrister Nasiru Balan Malam, expressed displeasure with the judgment.

According to the Counsel, the wife approached the court to dissolve the marriage because she was heckled and humiliated by her husband’s maltreatment.

Malam declared that the position of the guardians that the couple should continue to live together as husband and wife did not reflect the wish of the plaintiff.

He, therefore, vowed to appeal against it in the higher court.

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On his part, the Counsel for the respondent, Zachariah Aliyu Libata, expressed satisfaction with the court’s judgment, saying that it reflected the wishes of the guardians of the couple who wanted the marriage to be restored.

Libata said every marriage had its challenge and admonished that couples should always resolve their differences and forgive each other.