Tuesday, March 19, 2024

My pastor hubby abandoned me for church member he impregnated, woman alleges

…accuses him of planning to sell off family home

  •   I don’t know her, says hubby

Bedridden Mrs. Sandra Ishola never taught a day would ever come when her husband, Mr. David Ishola, with whom she “unofficially” tied the nuptial knots 41 years ago, would allegedly abandon her and her children for another woman.

Mrs. Ishola, who is paralysed from her waist down, and has only been moving around on a wheel chair in the past 10 years, has accused her husband of eloping with a member of his church who he impregnated.

According to her, her husband who is now living with his new wife in a house the estranged couple jointly built when the going was good, now threatens her with ejection from another apartment she lives with her children.

Narrating her ordeal to our correspondent, Mrs. Ishola said trouble began for her when she gave birth to her last child 33 years ago.

She claimed that she was still recuperating from an earlier illness when her husband forcibly slept with her and impregnated her, resulting in her becoming “totally paralysed.”

Mrs. Ishola said, “I got pregnant in 1980 and gave birth to a girl (Yemisi) and then I was enrolled in a catering school to learn catering service. In the same year, things picked up for both of us. We bought a piece of land in the Dopemu area of Lagos State. Work started in earnest on the land and a storey building was erected and we moved in there in1982. Between 1981 and 1985, I already had four (4) children and I had been in different businesses/ contracts in catering jobs.

“In April 1986, we had our court wedding at the Ikeja Marriage Registry. In July 1987, I had my fifth child and that was when everything fell apart.”

She claimed that after the naming ceremony of her child, she was hit by a strange illness that almost claimed her life, adding, “My health became worsened to the extent that though I was alive, I didn’t hear or feel anything at all. It was so bad that my late father had to come to Lagos to take me back to Benin. To the glory of God, I came back to life few days later, but I was now on a wheel chair. I stayed in Benin from July 1987 to January 1988, when I had to come back to Lagos due to pressures from my husband and the fact that my children were still too young. But on my arrival, the family members waged war against me, saying I was the only one enjoying my husband. Shortly after this, my husband joined them and started maltreating me.”

Mrs. Ishola said despite being confined to a wheel chair, she engaged in different types of business in which she recorded successes until her husband “decided to destroy some of them.”

Alleging that her husband planned to sell the house she has been living in with her children, she explained, “We bought the land in Gowon Estate between 1990 and 1992, built it and moved in in 1994. I was doing very well in my business and I was also supporting him as best as I could to the extent that everything to do with the home front was left for me, including the children’s schooling. I didn’t mind then, after all my business was successful and I felt I was supporting my husband. But I was too naive to understand that he was just taking advantage of my innocence and blind trust to exploit me and dodge his responsibilities to us.

“I also went into Ankara materials sales, going to the factory in Kaduna, where I would print my own designs, bring them back to Lagos. But my husband would take one design each and make for himself without paying for it. It got so bad that he would also take and sew for his friends and business associates without paying and whenever I asked him for money, his usual response was, “Because you want to make profit, we will not eat and wear cloth?”

“Later, we bought another piece of land, but when I travelled to Benin, my husband sold off the land before I returned, without prior information, and the money was not accounted for.

“He paid an initial deposit for another piece of land, but later decided not to buy it. He said I could go and pay it off for myself. When I got to the seller’s office, I asked them to change the name on the receipt to mine since I was the one that wanted to pay for it, but they refused, saying that it’s only my husband that could give them such directive. My husband promised to go and rectify it several times but he never did. So, for us not to lose out completely, I paid for the land.

She further alleged, “In 1997, he forced himself on me and I got pregnant; that was 10 years after my last born. He did everything to get me to terminate the pregnancy, but I refused and I had a girl who is now a 200 level student of Economics in UNILAG. From infancy till now, he has not spent a dime on that child just because I refused to abort the pregnancy.

“As I speak with you, my husband still retained our flat in the first building, he turned his office space there to a church. Currently he has taken one of his church members that he impregnated as wife.

“He left me and the six (6) children in the house in Gowon Estate for over a decade.  I had to take a loan to build shops in front of the house and rent them out. The proceed is what I use to pay the children’s schools fees and other sundry bills. Due to lack of funds, I can’t continue with my physiotherapy exercise. So now, I am practically either on my back or stomach, because I can’t do anything from my waist down. I wear catheter and adult pampers. I suffer from bed sores all the time, but God has been faithful despite my condition.

“I still do little business here and there, buy and tie garri, sugar and groundnut. I sell cold pure water, both in bags and pet bottles. I still kill cow yearly for those that want to buy and I have a catering outfit too that handles events for people. I am not a lazy person. My husband has come to evict people from the shops outside, saying that I was collecting money from them and spending it alone.

“Now, my husband is threatening to chase me out. He does not want anyone to visit me. He wants me to die in sorrow and depression while living in peace with his second wife and other children. Nigerians should please save me from him.”

Corroborating his mother’s claims, the estranged couple’s first child, Kola, told our correspondent, “All my mother narrated is the truth. I had to step in at a stage and I asked him what our mother had done to deserve the punishment he has been subjecting her to even in her already bad condition. Instead of saying anything, he scolded me and chased me away. He was never responsible for our tuition fee even throughout my studentship in UNILAG.

“Recently, he has been coming around to threaten that he would throw mummy out with her condition and also sell this house. This is the house that was bought by our mummy. He has abandoned us here for many years and now live with a new wife in our former house that he and mummy built together.”

But when contacted on the phone, Pastor Ishola declined to speak on the matter and even denied knowing anyone bearing Mrs. Sandra Ishola.

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