An Abuja-based housewife, Blessing Ilo, has told a Customary Court sitting in Nyayan that her husband has been raping his 12-year-old daughter.
According to her, James Akpan, suddenly brought the girl home midway to their marriage and claimed he had her with another woman.
Ilo testified in a divorce petition she filled against the husband on Tuesday.
“All the while I was living with my husband and that little girl of 12 years, I don’t know that my husband was always having sex with her when I’m out of the house.
“I would not have suspected anything because when my husband brought the little girl into the house, he told me that she was one of his children from another woman.
“Also, the girl was still a child that no sane man will lust after,” she said.
The petitioner, a civil servant, told the court that on a particular occasion, the little girl confessed to the police that her father usually tie her hands before having sex with her.
Ilo said that she had to move out of her husband’s house because he was always messing up the house, especially when he was drunk.
She said, “My husband always urinates around the house whenever he is drunk; sometimes on the bed or on the floor of the room.
“Worst of all, one day he woke up in the night and went straight to the kitchen, opened the bucket of drinking water and urinated into it.”
She also said her husband does not provide food for the family, adding “not even his child’s school fees.”
The petitioner begged the court to dissolve the marriage and grant her custody of the only child of the union.
The respondent was not present in court.
The judge, Jemilu Jega reiterated that the respondent was served on three different occasions but refused to appear in court.
He adjourned the case till February 9 for judgment.
