Court intervenes as Father snatches Son’s Fiancée

Wonders shall never end in this world. The Customary court at Mapo Ibadan presided over by Chief Ademola Odunola heard a man named Mr. Adesola Aremu who charged his four children to  court for severely beating his new wife and putting her naked in the public. He also prayed the Court to order his children to stay away from his new wife. The children are Adeola Aremu 37 years married, Abiola Aremu 34 years, Adekunle Aremu 31 years and Adekola Aremu 27 years

Mr.  Adesola Aremu told court that the mother to the four children has dissolved the marriage between them some 22 years ago and dumped all the children for him. According to him, he said the woman was so unfaithful and un-desirous of a woman. He added that this got to a point when people around were telling him terrible things about his wife infidelity. He alleged that on different occasions, she will claim that she was traveling for a business trip yet people would see her around with different men in different hotels. Mr. Aremu said that there was a day he caught her red handed with another man. Due to that fact, he was traumatized and got hospitalized because of the true love he had for his then wife, he said.

He further alleged that it was painful for him that it was on his sick bed in the hospital that their mother served him her divorce letter. Eventually, the marriage with four children was dissolved and since then he claimed that he is the one taking care of these children. He told the Court that at the time of the divorce their first child was just 15 years, the second one was 12 years while the third one was 9 years and the last one was 5 years old.

Mr. Aremu told court that he suffered to raise these children to the Secondary School Certificate level (SS. 3). After their school leaving certificate, he encouraged and supported them financially and morally to learn particular vocations they wished and he established them accordingly. Angrily, he told court that instead of his children to support him on his desire for a new wife, they were fighting with his new wife.

He narrated that after the first marriage was dissolved, he waited for good 5 years with the expectation that their mother will come back to him. But unfortunately, the woman got married to another man. It was after 5 years that he also married another woman and since he remarried; his children have been causing harassing his wife. He alleged that the woman spent 16 years and left him again principally of his children’s harassments.

Mr. Aremu was therefore in court to seek for protection because he has married a new woman about whom his children have started fresh harassment of this new wife. He added that the last incident they had was terrible as his last child (Adekola) could not control his anger when he broke down the entrance door just because Adekola wanted to beat his wife. Mr. Aremu tendered the broken door picture in court as evidence.

He said he suspected that his divorced wife was behind all the provocations of turning her children against him and his new wife. He pleaded to the court to order his children not to come near him, his house and his new wife; unless they agree that they won’t be pestering his wife anymore.

In response to the accusations made against them, Adekola Aremu, 27, the last son of Mr. Adesola Aremu narrated to the court that their mother truly wronged their father by leaving him during the stormy period but lamented Mr. Adesola Aremu was to reap the fruit of his labour on them; his children, that things went wrong and beyond their understanding. Adekola told court that they all owed their father debt of gratitude for solely bringing them up and that is why they can never hate him for any reason even till the moment they are in court.

He stated that there was a time their mother filed a case against their father mainly to have them in her custody but they all chose their father and denied their mother in court. He noted after their mother’s divorce, their father married a second wife whom he Adekola, 27, alleged to have caught on some occasions. Adekola further said he never for once revealed this to their father till the moment they were in court because he did not want to be the source of commotion between his father and that woman. He added that the woman spent 16 years with him but their union was fruitless and eventually she left for no reason.

About the new wife (3rd wife) over whom their father came to court, Adekola narrated that in 2017 he traveled to Lagos with some Artists to feature in a Drama. During the process of acting in Lagos he met a single mother with 2 children. The woman used to sell plantain for them at the location. Later they got close to each other and sometimes discuss about life generally. Adekola told court that he told this plantain seller about his family and his father especially how their mother left their father and how they passed through and survived the storm of life together with their father and she in response told him many things about her predicament and how she became single mother of two children. He said he did not know that this woman has hidden agenda. 

Adekola Aremu told the court that in the late 2017, the woman begged him that she wished to change environment especially she preferred Ibadan and asked if he can help her to get a place where he can be staying for a while. Adekola told the court that out of sympathy he informed his father about this and his father allowed her to stay with them for a week. But instead of a week she spent two weeks before she returned to Lagos. A month later, she came back with her two children and all her belongings. Adekola said that when he noticed this development he asked her, she referred him to ask his father what is going on. Adekola said that when he asked his father, his father told him that he has engaged the woman and she is finally here as wife not as Adekola’s visitor anymore.

He said that his father advised him to cope with the situation of things at hand. He said he was so furious about his father’s step and informed his siblings about it but they all urged him to handle it carefully. They all agreed to meet their father about this issue but to everybody’s surprise their father frankly told them not to discuss with him. He said their father was so adamant that he had taken the decision and nothing can change it. Their father changed behaviour to all the children, he said.

Adekola claimed that he had a phone recording with him in court where the same woman he had helped was instructing his father to send him parking out of the house and his father did not hesitate to send him parking out of the house. Meanwhile, different times before this woman came into his life Adekola said he had severally wished to get an apartment but it was the same father that often advised him not to waste money on renting a house was now willing to give him part of the rent money in order to please his new wife.  Adekola said that he informed his siblings about this but to their surprise, their father did not pick their phone calls.

He explained that he can’t really say what caused the conflict which his father complained of because on that day he went to his workshop but when he returned from workshop he discovered that his sister Abiola who came to meet their father to discuss with him were physically fighting with her father’s wife. And he further noticed that the 13 year old child of his father’s wife was attempting to stab his sister with broken bottle. Immediately, the wife and her child saw him; Adekola returning from work, they ran inside the building and locked-up the door against them outside. He said that was the reason that he furiously and forcefully opened the door. He said that on the following day, he went to his father with his father’s friend to apologize for what happened and repair the broken door.      

Abiola Aremu  a fashion designer at Ogbere Tioya, Ibadan who is the second daughter of Mr. Adesola Aremu and brother to Adekola responded to the charge and told the court that truly their mother left their father at a difficult time when things were not rosy for him. With tears in her eyes, she knelt down and ordered her younger one too to prostrate before their father in court. She did this to apologize for all wrongs they have done to him.

She stated that if their father could recollect that on many occasions and in different courts they preferred their father over their mother because when they were nothing it was him they saw around them acting as father and mother for them. Due to this fact, the unconditional love they have for him had never for a moment changed, she said. She added that the issue with their father is that he used to marry wrong women because he easily trusts and he is very caring. She said the earlier narration of his brother concerning the first woman their father married soon after their mother’s divorce.

She elaborated Adekola’s story on the second wife’s stay, when she said that Adekola took ill to the point of death and was redeemed by a man of God who traced the illness to the woman’s undoing. Till now, no one knows how she left because she did not tell anybody even her husband and since she left, they have been having healthy times with their father, she disclosed.

She said she was not staying with their father; it is only her brothers that are staying with him. She confirmed Adekola’s story about the new wife who brought two children into their father’s house. Weeping, she questioned why their father could develop such a great hatred for all of them; his children, after he has suffered enough to raise them up. She wondered aloud that even when their father was supposed to deny them, he didn’t but now that it is time for him to reap all good deeds he has done that things turned otherwise.

Their father has ex-communicated with their elder sister for over 8 months and she in return has vowed never to come to their father’s house again due to the fact that their father intentionally cut-off all possible means of reaching him having thoroughly warned her not to come to his house anymore, these implied that something odd is happening to their father, she expressed.

Giving an account of the brawl that involved her and her father’s new wife, Abiola Aremu told the court that she went to her father house to plead on behalf of her brother to their father who planning to send his brother out of the house. When she got there, her father was not at home but met his new wife and her children and while she; Abiola was trying to wait for her father the his wife and her 13 years old child started harassing her and trying to pursue her out of the house, she alleged.

Later everything turned into a brawl dispute to the extent that her 13 year old attempted to stab her with broken bottle during when her younger brother returned from workshop and people that were around rescued her, she said. She expressed her surprise that when their father arrived, he was not ready listen to any of them but to demand not to see us again. All effort made to reach him was fruitless. She further lamented in court that they all love their father and they cannot do without him because he is a good man and they don’t want him to die prematurely so that he can enjoy them all. She said that the woman he has married is childless too for over a year which means she has nothing to offer him than destruction and she appealed to the court to order their father to listen and reason with them at least, for once.

The Court President Chief Ademola Odunade asked the children what they want from their father to make peace reign in the family, all the children responded in unison that they want their father to let that woman go because since 2017 she had nothing to offer him than untimely death. They offered that if their father was ready to marry another wife, they will support him except the one he has in house now who they alleged was bad.

The Court President put it to Mr. Adesola Aremu that is it true the woman he married happened to be his last son’s friend who came from Lagos. Mr. Adesola Aremu reluctantly replied and said yes. The president shook his head over and over and put his head on the presiding table for like a minute.  Later the court president raised his head from the table and frankly counseled the children that sometimes when someone used wrong ways to correct wrong doing it will turn to chaos like they found themselves. He said, if truly they love their father as they claimed, they should give their father sometime and space for now because he perceived something unnatural about this  family’s crisis. In addition, the Court implored them to start praying fervently for their father because he needs help but the greater problem is that Mr. Adesola Aremu himself did not know that something wrong has happened to him.

The President advised Mr. Adesola Aremu to listen attentively to his children’s wise warning before things get worse. He added that in the first instance, the way he married his son’s woman friend is not ideal. The President added for a woman to follow a young handsome man down from Lagos to Ibadan definitely there is a mutual understanding that is beyond friendship and that if the court should pressurize Mr. Adesola’s last son, the father will realize that the boy must have been sleeping with this woman before his father – Mr. Adesola married her. This may be the main reason why all the children opposed their father’s decision because it is a taboo in Yoruba land, where they lived.

Even a woman gave birth to a man does not mean she can not kill him, talk less of the one that does not. The President added that in situation like this Mr. Adesola should be very careful because if truly the woman loves Mr. Adesola she should love him with all his belongings, including all his children.

The President revealed that the court has done underground investigation about this issue by interviewing one of Mr. Adesola Aremu’s friends who begged the Court not to mention his name. The said friend had disclosed of many warning, cautions and advice to Mr. Adesola to listen to his appreciative children who are ready to do anything to save their father because they don’t want anything bad to happen to their father who on many occasions won’t listen to any good counsel except the one the woman gave him.

The President ordered the father and his children to go home to resolve the matter amicably and come back to Court in two months. He further ordered the father to heed people’s wise counsel to reverse his decision, listen to his children and re-build mutual relationship with them in order for him to have peace in his old age.

By PublicTimes Nigeria

PublicTimes Nigeria (ISSN: 2250 –9295)

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