09012021 - Nigeria must stop paying ransom to kidnappers

16—SATURDAY Vanguard, JANUARY 9, 2021
Nigeria ranks 2nd
highest in paternity
fraud in the world
•Three out of ten Nigerian men are not
biological fathers of their children...
By Sola Ogundipe, Yetunde
Arebi & Evelyn Usman
ADNA test revealed that Christopher
Johnson wasn’t the biological father of
the three children he had nurtured and
invested in for almost two decades. The
children, Esther, 19, Shirley, 17 and Stephen,
15, were born by the same mother who
unfortunately was deceased.
Christopher, a successful but retired
architect, was compelled to find out the truth
about the paternity of the children after a
stranger turned up one day to claim he was
their biological father and challenged him to
a DNA paternity test.
Christopher received the shock of his life
when the result proved that the stranger was
indeed the children’s real father. It turned out
that the man and his late wife had been
involved in a long secret love affair that
produced the three children he erroneously
assumed belonged to him.
DNA paternity tests are unraveling a lot of
buried family secrets. Keeping family secrets
isn’t as easy as it used to be and just one DNA
test could change everything for better or for
worse.
Many children are experiencing paternity
scandals by learning that their father is really
not their biological father.
The perception that paternity fraud is high
in Nigeria is not unfounded. Reports have
been making the rounds that Nigeria has
the 2nd highest rate of paternity fraud in the
world after Jamaica. Many men have been
unknowingly raising children that are not
theirs and to curb the trend, there have been
calls for introduction of mandatory DNA
testing at birth
“The issue of paternity is a trilogy. It’s moral,
scientific and legal issue,” a concerned
commentator noted. “Series of DNA tests
carried out in laboratories are showing that a
number of children are being fathered by men
who are not their biological fathers.”
Saturday Vanguard investigation revealed
that traditionally in Nigeria, paternity of a
child is commonly determined by
acknowledgment, presumption or by proof.
Probably the most common mode of
paternity is by acknowledgment. Once a man
admits he is the father of a child, the case is
closed.
A man is presumed to be the father of a child
once the child is born within wedlock.
It is often said that a woman is in best
position to identify the father of her child, so
once a woman fingers a particular man, case
closed. However, developments show that
proving paternity is often not as
straightforward.
But rampant cases of denials, disputes and
counterclaims of paternity have been making
the rounds.
When the DNA test of their children failed
to match with that of the men believed to be
their fathers, several women were accused of
unfaithfulness and
condemned into the abyss
of marital ignominy, but the
resulting scandal
snowballed into one of the
most shocking revelations
in the history of parental
disputes.
But for the confession of
a dying Zambian nurse,
Elizabeth Bwalya
Mwewa, who owned up
to swapping about 5,000
babies over 12 years “for
the fun of it”, these
women might never
have restored their
ruined homes or
removed the garb of
unfaithfulness and
adultery as the truth
behind the genetic
discrepancies of their
children’s paternity
might never have been
unravelled.
Staggering
statistics
Meanwhile in
Nigeria, according to
available data, at least
four out of 10 men are not the
biological fathers of their children. Lagosbased
DNA experts confirm that many men
do not know that they are not the biological
fathers of their child.
One expert noted that currently, the
situation in Nigeria is quite high and majority
of first-borns are affected.
According to the American Association of
Blood Banks, globally, a third of all men are
not the actual fathers of their presumed
children.
“My life has crumbled. Living means
nothing to me now than a pack of trash. It
would have been better for me not to be born
than to face such miserable and uncanny
situation.”
These were the shattering words of Mr
Shogunle, who recently discovered that the
four boys whom he witnessed their birth and
catered for as a loving father would, were after
all, not his biological children.
The startling discovery has not only betrayed
the trust and confidence he had in his wife of
12 years, Betty, it has also stolen the happy
atmosphere in the family.
The genesis of this startling revelation
began in October 2017, after a heated
argument between the couple over Betty’s
refusal to perform her conjugal responsibility.
Her husband, a banker, had to involve their
pastor, having endured sex starvation for
seven months.
His decision to bring the matter to their
pastor’s knowledge was mainly borne out
of news
making the round that his wife was having
a clandestine relationship with their former
driver , a Master Degree holder , identified
simply as James, who later got a job with one
of the leading Oil & Gas firms in the country.
This was after much confrontation and
persuasion for his wife to tell him the truth.
According to Shogunle, “ Each time I
confronted her, she would rebuff me. At a
point she told me to do my worst. And as
punishment , she deprived me of sex for six
months”.
But the truth came to limelight on November
30,2018.
Explaining how he received the news that
plunged him into a world of confusion,
psychological and emotional trauma ,
Shogunle said,
“ I had come home early because I was not
feeling too well. I also did not drive because I
was too weak to do so. I did not know they
were signals to danger ahead.
“ I tiptoed into the sitting room to surprise
my wife. Just then, I heard her speaking
with someone on the phone. She was telling
the person that she did not know how to break
the news to me because it would destabilise
me. She begged the person to let me have
‘them’. By then it did not dawn on me who
she was referring to as ‘them’.
Bombshell
“And then the bombshell! I heard her
say ‘James darling, please leave him and my
children out of this since you still have me’.
“I was still glued to the spot I was, waiting to
allow her finish her conversation. Then she said: ‘
you put yourself in his shoes. If you were told you’re
not the biological father of four wonderful children,
all boys, that have grown to call and know you as
daddy, how would you feel?’ She burst into tears
at that point, begging the person at the other end
to let her husband and the boys be.
“ At that point, I screamed and fell on the floor
unconscious. By the time I woke up, I found myself
in our family hospital with my four children of ages
11,8,5 and 3 years respectively, by my bedside,
with my elder sister.
“ To cut the long story short, I insisted we went
for a DNA test to ascertain the paternity of my
children. Lo and behold, the result showed none
of them was mine.
“ It has been four months now, my children are
with my elder sister and her family while my
wife fled, saying she was too scared to face me.
She confessed to my sister that James was her
boyfriend in the university and that she never
enjoyed sex with me. This may sound as a
Nollywood story but it happened to me. “Now
the problem is how do I start relating with the four
boys? Each time they come around and ask where
is mummy, I would secretly look for where to cry”.
The Shogunles are not alone in the this, as