Man, 71, seeks divorce, alleges sex deprivation

A 71-year-old technician, on Monday begged an Igando Customary Court to dissolve his 15-year-old marriage, alleging that his wife was denying him sex.

The petitioner, Salmon Kassin, told the court that his wife, Mariam, was starving him of sex, the News Agency of Nigeria reports.

“Anytime I want to make love to her, she refuses and gives me conditions; if I want to force myself to do it, she threatens to stab me with a knife.

“How can my wife be denying me sex? I am not a stick or a stone. I need this thing but she is not giving it to me,” he said.

Salmon also accused his wife of lack of respect and of going out and coming back at will without informing him about her movements.

“She does not respect me and talks to me as if she is talking to a younger person,” he said.

Salmon said that he no longer loved his wife and was tired of the marriage, urging the court to put an end to it.

The respondent, Mariam, 58, a businesswoman, told the court that she denied her husband sex because he refused to give her the documents of her property.

“He should give me the documents. I want to claim my property back from him,’’ she said.

Mariam said that she gave her husband money to buy land for her, but she did not set her eyes on the documents covering it.

She told the court that she later discovered that it was his name that was on the documents.

The respondent said that she had the contacts of workers who built a one storey building on the land and they could serve as her witnesses.

“Salmon wants to cheat me by divorcing me to claim my property because I do not have any child for him,” she said.

She also said that her husband was owing her N1.8 million and should pay it before the divorce.

The court president, Mr. Adewale Eko, blamed the respondent for not having any document with her to prove ownership.

He said that the area in which the house is located would be visited, to make inquiries.

Eko adjourned the case to March 28, 2013 for further hearing.