A lecturer at the University of Ibadan (UI), Dr. Bilikis Babarinde has filed a committal application against her husband, Prof. Sikiru Babarinde over marriage dissolution
The lecturer through her counsel, Mr. Olufemi Adegboroye informed the Grade A Customary Court in Ibadan, Oyo State on Monday that the application was filed because the respondent failed to obey the court order on payment of his three children’s fees.
The counsel told the court that the court order was meant to be obeyed, adding that the respondent, Prof. Sikiru only paid the children’s school fees during the first term and failed to pay for the second term.
The defence counsel, Mr. Yusuf Anikulapo, told the court that he had yet to be served with the application for committal.
He also told the court that he had earlier filed an application challenging the jurisdiction of the court on the matter and said his application on jurisdiction ought to be heard before other applications.
Anikulapo stressed that his client was not unwilling to pay the children’s school fees, adding that he paid the children’s school fees during the first term but the plaintiff had been frustrating all efforts to resolve the matter and trying to poison the mind of the children against their father.
After taking their arguments, the President of the court, R.B. Gbadamosi, said the court would take the applications for jurisdiction and committal together to save time.
He adjourned the case till May 16 for a hearing of the two applications (application on jurisdiction and committal).
Dr. Bilikis Babarinde, a lecturer at the Department of Library, Archival and Information Studies Faculty of Education, had earlier asked Iyaganku Customary Court of Appeal, Ibadan, to dissolve her 20-year-old marriage for alleged maltreatment.
She told the court that the marriage, which was contracted on March 2, 2002, and produced three children, has broken down irretrievably.
Her estranged husband, Prof. Sikiru Babarinde is a lecturer at the Department of Early Childhood and Educational Foundations of the same faculty in the same university.
