Drama In Court As Woman Makes U-Turn On Divorce, Clinging On Husband’s Leg Begging Court Not To Dissolve Their Marriage

There was a mild drama yesterday at a Mapo Customary Court in Ibadan, Oyo State, when a housewife and mother of two, Beauty Odinye, prayed the court to disregard her earlier plea for divorce.

She also asked the court to ignore her testimony in which she alleged that her husband, Nathaniel, was impotent.

Beauty had earlier in July, while testifying in a divorce suit before the court, requested the dissolution of her 12-year-old marriage to Nathaniel over alleged impotence and lack of care. Beauty had told the court that the two children she had were products of extramarital affairs, adding that the father of her children was one Adedeji Ishola.

Nathaniel, a businessman, had denied he was impotent. Not swayed by Beauty’s evidence, the court had ordered her to produce the alleged father of her two children on the next date of adjournment.

After the case suffered several adjournments due to Beauty’s inability to produce her ‘secret lover’ in court, Nathaniel sought the order of the court for custody of the children.

At the resumed hearing on Tuesday, Beauty dramatically knelt down, clinging to Nathaniel’s legs and pleading for forgiveness. “I want to use this opportunity to plead with this honourable court to disregard all the statements that I earlier made. I lied when I said that my husband was not the father of my two children. I do not know what came over me when I said those things,” Beauty begged.

However, Nathaniel vehemently rejected his wife’s plea for mercy, adding that she had done an irreparable damage to his name and reputation. “My lord, Beauty has ruined my heart and dented my name in public and in the news. I cannot accept her plea; not this time, it is too late; she has brought so much shame to me,” Nathaniel lamented.

Beauty’s father, who had all along supported Nathaniel, joined his daughter to plead with his son-in-law for forgiveness.

The court’s President, Chief Ademola Odunade, subsequently invited the parties and their relatives to his chamber for an out-of-court settlement.