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From: Ali Abare, Gombe
Estranged husband of Zuwaira Mohammed, Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP), Sani Umaru Paiko, has said he was no longer interested in the marriage with her.
He, however, demanded from Zuwaira a refund of all the money he expended on her during their wedding, including the N200, 000 he gave her as dowry.
The controversial marriage had generated huge interest after Suwaira claimed she was forcefully married to the police boss.
CSP Paiko spoke with journalists, on Wednesday evening, shortly after a marathon meeting involving Zuwaira, her parents, legal practitioners and police authorities that held at the force headquarters in Gombe.
Lawyers representing Zuwaira at the meeting, led by Barrister Ladan Babakodong, insisted that their client was forcefully married to CSP Paiko, in his late fifties, without her consent.
However, a visibly angry Paiko said since Zuwaira was no longer interested in the marriage, he could not keep her by force but that she should refund all the money he spent on her before and after the marriage ceremony which he said held in Billiri town.
CSP Paiko said contrary to claims by her lawyers, Zuwaira was lawfully married to him and with her consent.
“She willingly agreed to marry me and we went ahead with the preparation with her consent. I took her to visit my first wife and she spent a night with her. She visited me severally in Lagos. I don’t even want the noise not if that her parents followed me to Lagos to plead with me to come and take my wife,” he said.
He explained further that at a time, shortly before the marriage ceremony, Zuwaira raised an alarm that she was about to be kidnapped by a group and that the gang would demand N2m as ransom from him.
“Because of that, I decided to take steps to protect her and I took her to a safe house. Somehow she disappeared from there,” CSP Paiko said.
He said as part of preparations for the wedding, he expended over N1m in buying personal effects for Zuwaira.
“On a day before the wedding, she requested for N200, 000 to enable her host her friends and I gave her,” he added.
Corroborating her brother, Mrs Zainab Paiko, confirmed that Zuwaira was actually married to her brother, with the ceremony held at the palace of the district head of Billiri.
“She was just collecting money from my brother. On April 1, she called to say she was on admission at a hospital. He sent her N100, 000 and as soon as she received the alert she called him back to say, ‘April fool!’” Mrs. Zainab said.
“I don’t want my brother to keep her, let her go but she must refund all the money he spent on her. She has been dating another man all along,” she said.
In a statement issued at the end of the meeting, counsel to Zuwaira, said sometime in 2016 when CSP Paiko was the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of Billiri town, he proposed to marry Zuwaira, but Zuwaira rejected the proposal outright.
“She rejected on the grounds that such a marriage will not only be contrary to her faith and belief as a Christian, it will scuttle her ambition to go to university to realise her long conceived dream,” Barr Babakodong said.
Investigations revealed that Zuwaira’s father, a Muslim supported the marriage between his daughter and CSP Paiko, with her mother, a Christian, also in support of the marriage.
Daily Sun gathered that the matter was thereafter referred to the Tangale Waja Area Court in Billiri.
