My husband killed our baby, wife tells court

“My husband killed our baby when he beat the hell out of me three days to my delivery.
“When I was finally delivered of the baby, he was dead as he was confirmed to have been wounded while in my womb due to the battering. ’’
Mrs Ekwutobi Mgbenka disclosed these to an Igando Customary Court in Lagos State on Thursday.
She added, “He used to beat me; and when I was pregnant, the beating continued unabated.
“Sometimes, my husband would naked me and poured grounded pepper on me before beating me,’’ she said.
The 41-year-old businesswoman disclosed these while responding to a divorce suit filed by Edwin, her husband of 24 years.
The respondent accused her husband of being a flirt, saying, he impregnated two married women.
“My husband was having an affair; he got two married women with children, pregnant.
“Edwin gave one of his married lovers the documents of four out of his 14 shops he built inside Igando Market without collecting a dime from her.
“He also bought her a house in Ikotun, Lagos state,” she said.
The mother of two said that her husband had been starving her of sex for the past four years and had now turned her to an abandoned property.
She explained to the court how she lost her first two babies.
“My first baby died through the medical doctor’s negligence, the second died through the beatings I received from my husband.’’
She , however, begged the court not to grant her husband’s wish for the dissolution of the marriage.
“Please, do not grant my husband’s wish, we both built the houses together but now he wants to push me out and bring in his `wives’,” she said.
The petitioner, a 55-year-old businessman, Mr Edwin Mgbenka, had approached the court for the dissolution of his 24-year-old marriage over what he called his wife’s alleged threat to his life.
Mgbenka said that his wife was always threatening his life with dangerous weapons.
“My wife always tells me that blood will flow whenever she is fighting me. She stabs me with dangerous weapons.
“There was a day she broke our standing mirror on me in my sleep because I refused to follow her to a church programme.
“She always tells my apprentices that I will soon die that she will be the one to settle them.
“Ekwutobi threatened to kill me if I marry another woman, and now I have two women after her.
“She fought with one of the women that had a twins for me and that landed her in a police station,” he said.
The petitioner alleged that his wife killed their first baby.
“Few days after she gave birth to our first baby, it was discovered that the baby had hernia and surgery was recommended.
“She was told not to back the baby but immediately after the surgery, she backed him and the baby died on her back,” he said.
Mgbenka said that Ekwutobi was violent in nature and that she had broken his car windscreen on four occasions.
He said that his wife used his money to buy a motorcycle for her man friend.
According to him, his wife encourages his children aged eight and 13 to steal his money for her.
He urged the court to dissolve the union that he was no longer interested and that he was not ready to die now.
The court president, Mr Adegboyega Omilola, adjourned the case until May 30 for further hearing.