I borrowed money for his studies, now he says I’m old, wife tells court

By Onozure Dania

There was a mild drama recently at the Agboyi/Ketu customary court when a woman Ethel Amagala 53, who had earlier approached the court for the dissolution of her marriage with  one Emmanuel Amagala, 60, stormed the court in anger over newspaper publication of her divorce case. Mrs Amagala whose children had earlier pleaded the court to discontinue the case, said her  husband also became angry when he read their divorce story in the newspaper (not Vanguard). She said: “The children want the case discontinued as it is causing embarrassment to the family. They said they would find a way to bring peace into the family.”

She had on the November 12, 2015 approached the court for a divorce with her estranged husband who she said took a new younger wife. The President, Mr. O. T. William however lampooned Mrs Amagala over her behaviour noting that the court was a public place and could not have stopped journalists from doing their job.  The embattled woman sought divorce on the grounds of  abandonment, infidelity, lack of love and threat to life.  “My husband constantly tells me I’m old.”

Narrating how she met her husband over 27 years ago, she said: “When he was studying at the Teachers’ Institute in Bayelsa, he did not have money to take care of the family; I was  frying and selling chips in Bayelsa and even borrowed money for his studies.” When we had our first child, it was my elder  sister who paid for the hospital bill and took care of me and the baby for three months. The situation remained same until 1991 when he took  up an appointment with the NNPC, as a manager. Now,  he decided to marry a younger woman and calls me a witch saying “I am old.”

She further claimed that her husband constantly  beats her, leaving her with injuries. “He had one day threatened me with a knife in the presence of our tenants who rescued me as he would have stabbed me with the knife.”        Mr Emmanuel Amagala denied the allegation of assault story on his wife but told the court he abandoned the house he built and decided to live alone in a rented apartment because of her  incessant nagging attitude which he described as unbearable. The President however asked the couple to go home and make their marriage work.