By; PATRICK TITUS, Uyo
A-40 year old man, Mr. Itoro Monday Uko in Itak Ikot Udo, Ikot Ekpene Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State has been accused of abandoning his wife and daughter for a side chick.
His wife, Itoro Uko who is teacher told High Court sitting in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital that she became aware of her husband’s love affair with “side chicks” after the birth of her first child and that all efforts she made to get him changed proved abortive.
Narrating her ordeal in the hands of her husband before the presiding judge, Justice Ntong Ntong, Itoro, she said that the husband abandoned her and their two years old daughter in the village to live with his side chick in Ikot Ekpene town.
After their marriage on January 18, 2020, according to her, she gave birth to her first child after which, she got pregnant for the second child, when her husband started to beat her resulting in her first miscarriage.
She also told the court that she got pregnant again for the third time and her husband continued assaulting her and was rushed to a hospital due to bleeding in May, 2022, where she spent three days during which her husband did not show up, if not for her siblings that footed her medical bills.
The mother of one said she had to travel to her village in Mkpat Enin for her mother to take care of her till she fully recovered and that throughout her stay, her husband did not call or visit.
On how she got to know that her husband was keeping multiple sex partners, she said, upon recovery on 4th July 2022, she went to her husband’s family home in Itak Ikot Udo, where they were living to find out why her husband did not visit but to her surprise, the keys to their apartment were changed and she could not enter the house to pick her clothes and that of her child.
She said that having become known to her inlaws of persisting act of battery, they advised her to stay with her parents in Mkpat Enin to avoid being killed by her husband.
Meanwhile, Itoro, an applicant to the suit through her Counsel, Ekom Friday Inwang. Esq. in an application filed, urged the court to order the arrest and detention of the respondent for being in contempt of the order of the court made 6th April, 2023.
The Presiding Judge, Justice Ntong Ntong issued the order after hearing counsel to the applicant and mother of the child, Barrister Ekom Friday Inwang following the absence of the respondent and his counsel.
Justice Ntong granted the order and “commanded Akwa Ibom State Commissioner of Police and the Divisional Police Officer, Ikot Ekpene Division, their officers and men in the name of the Governor of Akwa Ibom State and the Inspector General of Police to cause the arrest and detention of Mr. Itoro Monday Uko and produce him in Court” and adjourned the case to Thursday April 25, 2024 for hearing.
