African news : breaking news, features, analysis

A Nigerian court granted a 57-year-old man a divorce after hearing that his wife often brought his meals to him too late in the evening, local media reported on Thursday.

A court in Lagos heard that Olufade Adekoya was at the end of his tether after Olusola, his spouse of 25 years, refused to serve him when he demanded, the Vanguard national daily said.

"My wife had failed in her matrimonial obligations. She does not prepare my food on time and I have warned her several times, but she would not listen to me," he was quoted as saying.

"There is no point in harbouring a wife that makes me hungry. I am totally fed up," Adekoya told the hearing, for which the paper gave no date.

His wife denied the alleged dereliction, accusing her husband of plotting to take another wife.

But court president Olu Adebiyi reportedly dissolved the unhappy union, concluding: "The court had tried several times to reconcile their differences, but all efforts proved abortive."

It is thought to be the first time a husband has been granted a legal separation over his domestic meal time arrangements, although Nigeria is no stranger to bizarre divorce cases.

In 2008 a Nigerian pensioner bowed to pressure from local Islamic leaders to divorce 82 of his 86 wives to avoid an eviction order under the sharia legal system.

The Nigerian society website Sugar Daily has compiled a number of equally unusual applications it says were made to Nigerian courts in recent years.

They include a 32-year-old businessman who filed for divorce hours after his expensive wedding when he discovered his bride had been wearing a "butt pad" to augment the size of her rear.

In a case heard in Lagos, a wife was granted a divorce after claiming her husband often defecated in their cooking pots after getting drunk.

Meanwhile a 40-year-old carpenter told another court in Lagos to dissolve his marriage of five years, complaining that his in-laws often intervened when he was beating his wife.