What started as a sweet love story between a top staff of Chevron Nigeria Limited, Rotimi Babalola and his once darling wife, Adediwura Adebukola Babalola, ended in the most unexpected manner recently.
The matter has since become a messy divorce issue.
Babalola, who works as the Chief Medical Officer of Chevron Nigeria Limited reportedly threw his wife, Mrs Adediwura Adebukola Babalola, and their 8 year-old child out of their home unto the streets of the highbrow Cooperative Village Estate in Badore, Ajah, Lagos State, where they live.
Narrating the sad experience, Mrs Adebukola Babalola, said that her once sweet marriage which has lasted 10 years, started falling apart when her husband’s work schedule changed from his usual two weeks out and two weeks in, to one month out and one month in.
She said that Dr Rotimi Babalola suddenly became hostile to her.
“We have been married now for ten years. We had our good times, though, when it was rough, it was really rough!
“We never lived as a couple on a stretch, he normally went to work. He works two weeks in, two weeks out.
“Later, it was changed to one month in, one month out, so the times that it was good were when he came home after a long period that he had been away from home, he tried to be loving and at such moments i reciprocated.
“Though as a woman, I tried to cover up a lot of things because I wanted my marriage to work. I never dreamt that my marriage would end up like this. I’m that kind of person that when it comes to marriage, I try as much as possible, to make it work out by all means.
“I ignored the fact that he never allowed my family visit. My mother has never been to our home. Even when I gave birth to my child, my husband said that he didn’t want to see any of my family members. My siblings couldn’t come around.
“I wasn’t particular about that because I could always go to see them.
“Suddenly, he started becoming too involved with too many women, which I had to confront him on several times. I won’t lie, I had to confront some of the women sometimes too. And I told him I did not understand the way our marriage, was going.
“He moved out of our home since January 1st. When he moved out, I learnt that he moved into his friend’s house in Victoria Garden City.
“I sent people to beg him even my family members, but he wouldn’t see them, and to those he saw, he told them that he is done.
“He left a message that he had been enduring the marriage for too long, that he is now ready to go and find his happiness that he is not finding happiness in this marriage anymore.
“I sent him a message that I have been doing the best I could in this marriage but if that is what he wants, it is okay. So I allowed him to be.
“But only for him to come back and pack the whole household items, the beds, television, the chairs, he took them away during my absence.
“So I sent him a message that he could’t do that because he is making the house uncomfortable especially when I have an 8 year old child at home.
“He said he needed them where he was moving to. I didn’t argue with him. I just said it is okay.
“Then he started sending messages to my brother that he will throw me out of the house. And my brother asked him why he wanted to do that.
“He replied that I brought somebody to the house and I didn’t tell him. And my brother told him that the person in the house is my sister and it was because he was no longer staying there and I was living all alone with an 8 year old.
“He told him that I have been very sad and alone in the house and needed someone to be around to comfort me.
“He said no that he didn’t want any other person in his house. So my sister left that same day.
“He came home after then and removed all the solar system, the generator, the inverter and everything in the house and disconnected the light.
“So I told a lawyer, who wrote him a letter and his lawyer replied and called for a conference.
“So we went and he told the lawyers that he was no longer interested and I said too that I was no longer interested.
“So what is the way forward, he said he would rent me a two bedroom flat and pay for one year and that is all he could do.
“I asked him what will happen when the rent is due after the first year, he said hat is all he could do.
“Meanwhile, to my knowledge he owns five houses in different places,” she said.
Mrs Adediwura Babalola continued amidst weeping, “I rejected the offer because I asked him what will happen to my daughter and he said that’s all he could do.
“His lawyer called me back because he is a family friend, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, that I should give him a chance to intervene in the matter.
“He said he had talked to him that I should please call him now and try to beg him.
“I did as I was told, but he refused to pick his calls. His lawyer was surprised because he told me that my husband had told him that he would pick my call and hear me out.
“He begged me and I listened to him as a father. My daughter called, yet he didn’t pick the calls.
“I went to his Pastor at Winners Chapel, who also called him for a whole month, but he didn’t pick his calls. When he picked he told them he would see them. Till today, he didn’t go there to see the pastor. So the pastor gave up.
“The shock I received was that he came again during my absence to pick the refrigerator, dropped our cooked foods on the floor and disconnected the lights, and this landed me in the hospital.
“But he wasn’t done. He sent people to the house, soldiers, to come and take the only car, which I was using to move around and also take the child to school daily. That was when the neighbours intervened.
“It actually took the intervention of a colonel in the eastate to stop those soldiers from dragging me away that day with the car. And the final straw was when he came home with some people and sealed the house, throwing my daughter and I on the estate street.
“Of course, the neighbours intervened again asking him what I had done that couldn’t be resolved within the family closet.
“They asked him if it was adultery and he couldn’t answer because the neighbours knew the quiet lifestyle I live.’
After speaking to Mrs Babalola, we tried to speak with the husband, but all efforts proved abortive.
Meanwhile, one of the neighbours who did not want her name in print, said that the estate neighbours had at different times tried to make the Babalolas seek peace but that the husband didn’t show up.
“When he came to seal the house, we told him that he shouldn’t do that, that he should take the matter to court, and that if he wanted to divorce his wife he should do it honourably.”