Embattled Nollywood actress Mercy Aigbe has been granted a restraining order against her hotelier husband, Lanre Gentry by the Chief Magistrate’s Court of Lagos State sitting in Ogba, Lagos.
A certified copy of the order dated 28th April 2017 and signed by Mrs. Davies Abegunde, Chief Magistrate, Ogba Magistrate’s Court, made available to our correspondent, restrained Lanre from committing any further acts of domestic violence against the actress, (Mercy) with immediate effect.
According to the order issued on the grounds of the application issued by the Lagos State Domestic And Sexual Violence Response Team, Lanre is also retrained from going anywhere within one mile radius of where Mercy and her two children in her custody.
The returning date is May 17 whereby Lanre is ordered to appear before the Ogba magistrate’s court to show cause while the restraining order should not be made permanent by the court.
The whole of social media and the mainstream media has been buzzing with the news of the actress’ battered face arising from the alleged domestic violence perpetrated by the husband.
The drama was heightened with pictures of Mercy going through a head CT scan which surfaced online. This led to accusation and counter accusation followed by quasi make-up by both the husband and the wife.
Mercy took to her social media platform to share pictures of domestic violence victims with a caption; “Real men don’t beat women”.
In response, the husband initially posted and deleted a photo with a caption about how women should not be promiscuous. Shortly after that, he went ahead to post a photo of himself and Mercy and captioned it “I love my wife so much”.
While Mercy remains mute and has not gone beyond her social media message, Lanre has been granting interviews denying ever beaten her and claiming that the pictures trending were from a movie scene.
However, while the drama goes on, Mercy quietly reported the matter to the anti-domestic violence agency which took the matter up leading to the restraining order.
38-year old Mercy married Lanre, a popular hotelier over seven years ago. Their controversial marriage has been a staple for many talebearers with reports of several abuses.
But Lanre, a polygamist in an interview with an online portal said that most men would not tolerate what his wife has done to him in the past seven years they have been married.
He claimed he had shown her love and support despite some “unbelievable things” he had seen her do and had endured for the sake of keeping the marriage and her image intact.
“Would she have been in my house for seven years if I beat her? I don’t know why she pulled such a picture stunt but I know the person that rented the house for her. The pictures and all are just stunts to paint me bad and gain sympathy,” said Lanre.
“You know where Mercy was before I married her and in seven years, I think I have tried but she has other ideas and most of the things that I take from her, most men wouldn’t take it and I hope she won’t allow me to talk if she keeps smearing my name. I am trying to be calm because I don’t want to use my hand to destroy what I help created,” added.
–