My husband smokes cannabis, is irresponsible, actor Kalu Ikeagwu’s wife tells court

Ijeoma Ikeagwu, estranged wife of Nollywood actor Kalu Ikeagwu, on Wednesday told an Ikeja High Court how the actor’s habit of smoking cannabis made her to be fearful for their children’s safety.

She made these comments while being led in evidence by her lawyer, Mrs S.I. Amedu. Ikeagwu, in a suit marked ID/8939HD/2021, had filed for divorce from his wife and is seeking custody of their children, a son and a step daughter.

Ijeoma narrated how she had been living in fear in her marriage because of her husband’s irresponsible lifestyle, including smoking of cannabis and refusal to take care of her and the children.

Ijeoma recounted how Ikeagwu would take the children out on a stroll in the estate in Ogba where they lived and would take them to buy and smoke cannabis, exposing the children to the suppliers and danger. She said it was when she discovered this that she insisted she would be going with them on the strolls. My husband felt uncomfortable with this and eventually stopped the strolls, Ijeoma said.

She also narrated how Ikeagwu was once arrested by operatives of SARS and taken to Area F in Ikeja and how, when the husband was released, they had to hurriedly leave the place where they lived to another accommodation. And that when she asked to know why he was arrested her husband merely told her it was linked to a stolen phone whose owner died in Abuja.

When Amedu asked Ijeoma why she left her matrimonial home, she said prior to her leaving, Ikeagwu had called her dad and told him he was no longer interested in the marriage and that Ikeagwu told her he wanted a divorce, and he would constantly harass her to leave his house, sometimes in the presence of their 10-year-old daughter. She said she stayed back in Lagos for two weeks immediately she left her husband’s house before going to Enugu because her daughter was about to take her school leaving certificate examination and also the daughter’s school’s graduation ceremony was around that period.

The judge, Justice Christopher Balogun, asked Ijeoma why she did not let her husband know that she was still in Lagos for that two-week period, and she replied that their relationship and communication had not been cordial and that Ikeagwu had been sending her threat messages and so she could not have revealed her location to him.

Justice Balogun adjourned the case to July 8 for continuation of hearing.