An Ado Ekiti-based businesswoman, Mrs. Motunrayo Bayo-Famoroti, has urged an Ekiti State High Court sitting in Ikere Ekiti to dissolve her marriage of fourteen years to a popular broadcaster, Mr. Bayo Famoroti over alleged domestic violence and adulterous acts.
Mrs. Bayo-Famoroti in a petition filed before the court by her lawyer, Mr. Temitope Omotayo, said her husband’s alleged serial brutality against her forced her to leave her matrimonial home in April 2022 to save her life.
The Petitioner also accused her husband, who hosts many family and religious programmes on radio stations, of infecting her with sexually transmitted diseases due to the Respondent’s alleged adulterous nature with other women.
The aggrieved wife in her Petition before the Court said she is seeking divorce on three grounds that the marriage has broken down irretrievably, intolerant behaviour of incessant assault by the Respondent and the the Respondent has been emotionally cruel to her.
Mrs. Bayo-Famoroti averred that she was legally married to the Respondent who is an evangelist in Ekiti Anglican Diocese with the marriage contracted at Ekiti State Model Marriage and Counselling Registry on 21st November, 2009 with the union producing two children.
The Petitioner claimed that their children have been traumatized due to constant pleadings that their father should stop beating and battering her.
She added the two children have been living with her and the Respondent has not in anyway financially or emotionally responsible for the children since May 2022.
Mrs. Bayo-Famoroti averred that during one of the several incidents of domestic violence in their matrimonial home, her husband allegedly smashed her head with a POS machine leading to her admission at the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital where she was treated for injuries sustained in the attack and issued a medical report to that effect.
Among the reliefs being sought from the Court by the Petitioner include an order of dissolution of marriage contracted between her and the Respondent on ground that the marriage has broken down irretrievably.
Mrs. Bayo-Famoroti also prayed the Court for an order of perpetual or perennial injunction restraining the Respondent of his agents from further assaulting, battering, embarrassing, intimidating or insulting her in any way or manner whatsoever now, forthwith and henceforth.
The Petitioner also prayed the Court for an order for the custody of the two children produced from the union. The age of the first child is 12 years while that of the second child is 10 years.
According to her, “About three months into the marriage, I found out that the Respondent had not ceased from the adultery act and that the lady he presented as a relative got pregnant for him which made me confront him with the allegation but instead of him to be remorseful, he assaulted me and even destroyed our wedding frames and other valuables.
“During the pendency of my cohabitation with the Respondent, I severally contracted sexually transmitted diseases from the Respondent due to his adulterous nature with other women but when I tried to talk to the Respondent about it, the only response from the Respondent was usually serious assaults which several people have intervened but to no avail.
“I left the matrimonial home in April 2022 in order to save my life from perennial criminal assaults of the Respondent and then I could no longer condone or tolerate the mental and physical abuses of the Respondent.”
The Petitioner also filed documentary, pictorial and electronic evidences to prove her case and for the Court to grant her prayer for divorce from the marriage to the Respondent.
Hearing commences in the divorce suit on 15th April, 2024.
