Divorce: UI Lecturer Asks Court To Jail Husband Over Children’s School Fees

A University of Ibadan lecturer, Dr Bilikis Babarinde, has filed an application for committal against her husband, Prof. Sikiru Babarinde, for alleged disobedience to a court order asking him to pay his children’s school fees.

Her counsel, Mr Olufemi Adegboroye, informed the Grade A Customary Court in Ibadan, Oyo State, in a case of marriage dissolution 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 Prof. Sikiru only paid the school fees during the first term and refused to pay it in the second term.

The plaintiff, who is a lecturer at the Department of Library, Archival and Information Studies Faculty of Education, had earlier told the court that the 20-year marriage to her estranged husband had broken down completely and should be dissolved.

The husband is a lecturer at the Department of Early Childhood and Educational Foundations of the same faculty in the same university.

The counsel for the respondent, 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 said his client paid the first term fees of the children but the plaintiff had been frustrating all efforts to resolve the matter and trying to poison the mind of the children against their father.

The President of the court, R. Gbadamosi, said the court would take the applications for jurisdiction and committal together in order to save time.

Gbadamosi adjourned the case till May 16 for hearing of application on jurisdiction and committal.