09012021 - Nigeria must stop paying ransom to kidnappers

18—SATURDAY Vanguard, JANUARY 9, 2021
Monkey Village demolition is savage treatment of urban poor —CEE-HOPE
…demands compensation from Lagos govt
By Prisca Sam-Duru
Occupants of the recently demolished
informal housing settlement in the
Opebi area of Lagos State known as
Monkey Village, are still licking their wounds
days after the demolition exercise.
Amongst the severely affected is a Non-
Governmental Organisation, the Centre for
Children’s Health Education, Orientation and
Protection (CEE-HOPE) which had its ICT
Centre and Youth hub destroyed alongside its
library and gadgets.
According to CEE-HOPE which criticised the
Lagos State Government for the demolition of
the informal space, the act was a calculated
attack on the poor as well as education.
The demolition which took place in the morning
of December 31, 2020, was carried out by
truckloads of policemen and thugs. They were
said to have descended on Monkey Village
with the aid of graders and bulldozers, pulling
down the houses, and displacing more than
400 persons including children. Many of the
residents who had gone out for the day had
their homes totally demolished with their
belongings inside.
The ICT Centre and youth hub built in the
community by CEE-HOPE was also pulled
down with several computers, library and other
gadgets intact in the building.
According to the organisation, pleas by
community members who had access to the
Centre to allow them help retrieve the
materials, were ignored. Destroyed also was
CEE-HOPE’s water project in the community.
Several members of the community were also
brutalised by the thugs whom community
sources told CEE-HOPE, were governmentsponsored.
“After several denials by the Lagos State
Ministry of Environment, the Lagos State Task
Force office and other official quarters, the
Lagos State Ministry Of Physical Planning &
Urban Development, came up with a statement
on Sunday January 3, 2021 accepting
responsibility for the demolition exercise
carried out on December 31, 2020, in Monkey
Village. They gave ‘reclamation of wetland’ as
the reason for the forced eviction exercise”,
CEE-HOPE’s founder/Executive Director,
Betty Abah explained.
Reacting to the Lagos State government’s
practice of mixing eggs is unethical. “How
do you determine which egg belongs to who
and now we’re already doing three parent
conception. I don’t think it’s ethical. “The
identity of the baby matters and that is why
now in the UK when you use donor eggs
you’re required by law to tell the baby once
he attains 18. That law doesn’t apply here in
Nigeria for now maybe with time it will be
applicable because there should be no hush
hush about anything concerning parenting.”
According to Ajayi, many fathers are not just
suspecting that they may not be biological
fathers of their children.There are situations
coming up that desire the need for DNA
testing such as American or Canadian visa
lottery.
DNA shocker
Ajayi said: “I had a friend who was elderly,
his children are my age mates. His wife died
many years ago and he remarried . The
children reside abroad and invited him to
America to settle down. The man was excited
and decided to take the three children from
the 2nd wife along with him, but the
mandatory DNA test showed he wasn’t the
father of any of the children. He had to travel
to the US alone and just left the children in
his house in Lagos. It was after his dearh that
the truth was revealed.”
Further, Ajayi narrated the story of the
vanishing twin. A woman and her husband
had divorced. She was pregnant and they had
gone to court, which asked for the DNA tests
result as evidence of paternity of the children
because issue of child support was involved.
“The woman got the shock of her life when
she learned that none of the children were
biologically hers but confirmed the man was
their biological father.
“Of course the woman was insistent that she
gave birth to the children, but the test showed
they were not hers. Her lawyer went to
research medical history and discovered that
such case had occurred before.
“He then got the court to be present at the
delivery of the new baby. So the court was
represented, and saw her deliver the baby.
The DNA test was carried out, but again and
like before the result shower she wasn’t the
statement, CEE-HOPE issued a statement on
January 4, 2021, faulting the action of the
“Lagos State Government which it described
as ‘crude, autocratic and a gross violation of all
known laws and guidelines guiding the
handling of such matters world over’ which
has not only displaced 400 persons (currently
homeless) but also endangering the
educational dream of more than 200 of the
community’s children”.
“It is indeed a crying shame that the biggest
news out of Lagos every single year would
revolve around the savage treatment of the
urban poor,” said Abah, adding that “From
Maroko, Makoko, Badia East, Iluibirin to
Otodo-Gbame, and now Monkey Village, it is
the same pattern of the gross abuse of the human
and shelter rights of the urban poor, when Lagos
is not the only state in Nigeria and when
Nigeria is not the only place where we have
slum settlement or indeed where the urban
poor exists. Yet, the most painful for us was the
destruction of educational facilities funded by
private individuals and for the most vulnerable
of children, and in a country with the highest
number of out-of-school children, at a time of
a global pandemic and during a national
biological mother.
It took some time before medical experts
could explain the bizzare development.
“What happened was that the woman was
a twin, but had been born as a singleton. She
had actually absorbed her to while inside the
womb. Her ovaries were actually those of her
non-existent twin sister and the DNA from
her ovaries were different from her own
DNA.”
In essence, according to Ajayi, the woman
was bearing the children of her sister. She had
two sets of DNA and since it’s the ovaries that
make eggs, the children she was making
actually belonged to the twin sister that was
never born
“All this is genetics and it is something that
we have not fully unravelled. Sometimes
everything is not as it seems and that why
sometimes when. people say they know their
wife or know their husband I just laugh and
say they don’t really know.
“ It’s only what you see that you know.
because what we are discovering about
human beings and genes is sometimes
beyond belief.
“The way DNA testing, doing your
paternity and ancestry are getting cheaper
and affordable by the day and you may not
even need to leave your house. More people
are getting interested and sot it’s going to
become more affordable.”
Currently, millions of Black Americans want
to know their origin because one can tell from
one’s DNA where one is from.
“Communities tend to have the same DNA
sequence it will just be the one that
differentiates you that’s unique and specific
and can be dated to know where you have
come from. But while you’re looking for that,
you might get some other information that you
do don’t want,” Ajayi cautioned.
Accuracy of DNA test
Many people often wonder how accurate is
DNA paternity testing? “DNA paternity
testing is reputed to be 99.99 percent or higher
accurate when done properly,” according to
Salami Abiodun, Senior Geneticist with
DNA Centre for Paternity Test, Nigeria.
He explained that DNA paternity testing
(sometimes called parentage testing) uses
recession”.
CEE-HOPE
insisted that
the “latest
statement
from the
government
was part of the
layers of lies
bandied by
the Lagos
S t a t e
Government
in the last few
days to cover up the atrocity committed against
the poor residents of Monkey Village. From
claiming it was a take-over of a land under
contest in court, to saying it was a hoodlums’
hide-out, it has now framed a wetland
narrative.
“But whatever it is, how come there was no
prior notice to the residents to at least take out
their few belongings before they were crushed
by the graders?”
Monkey Village Abah pointed out, “sits on
about 10 plots of land which belongs to about
DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid), the biological
basis of inheritance, to prove or disprove the
relationship between a child and an alleged
father.
Noting that paternity can even be
established before the baby is born using a
prenatal paternity test, he said the test can
also be performed even if the alleged father
is missing or deceased.
As explained by Abiodun, “If two possible
fathers are related as full brothers or father
and son, they may share many of the DNA
markers used in paternity testing. This means
that if proper precautions are not taken, both
men could test positive as the child’s biological
father.
“DNA testing is strong enough to
determine paternity in a case involving
related alleged fathers, but the laboratory
must be aware of the situation before the
testing process begins.”
He said DNA Centre offers two options for
cases involving alleged fathers who are
related.
“Option 1: Test both alleged fathers, the
child, and the mother at the same time. By
comparing both alleged fathers’ DNA profiles
with the child’s DNA profile, our expert
laboratory staff can achieve accurate and
conclusive test results.
“Option 2: Test one alleged father with
extended analysis. This option can be taken
when only one of the alleged fathers is
available for testing. To produce a conclusive
result, we must perform extended testing and
statistical analysis. There is an additional fee
for the extended testing and analysis.”
Explaining the difference between legal
DNA test and informational DNA test,
Abiodun said both tests are exactly the same.
“The difference is that legally-binding tests
require a witness, proof of identity, and
special chain of custody procedures. The Peace
of Mind test is for informational purpose only,
therefore is not legally binding. It is intended
as a discrete and private way whereby
families can resolve questions without
involving outside parties.
“Whether for legal or personal purposes, the
DNA test results and testing are the same.
When testing for legal purposes, a third-party
must witness the DNA collection process and
verify the identity of each person being
tested.”
seven individuals. The individuals then gave
out the land to the residents pending when
they are fully ready to develop the place and
each land is overseen by some members of the
community who are well known to the land
owners”, emphasising that the people are
therefore not illegal occupants neither have
they ever been served any evacuation notice.
Now that an agency of the Lagos State
government has finally come out to admit
culpability in the entire fiasco, CEE-HOPE is
therefore demanding the following: An
apology to the community members for the
gross violation of their rights, including the
failure to follow due process by duly serving
them formal notice; compensation of every one
of the community members for lost personal
and household belongings; a relocation of the
victims of this arbitrary forced eviction as
guaranteed by the UN provision on Housing
Right; Compensation of CEE-HOPE for the
complete destruction of its multi-million Naira
ICT Centre/Youth
Hub in the
community and
water project; and a
promise by the
government to end
all such arbitrary
actions especially
with regard to the
urban poor in future
engagements,
commit to
meaningful
engagement of
informal housing
residents rather than
the usual use of brute
force, commit to
upgrading of such
settlements as is the
current practice
across the world
rather than forced eviction which pushes the
poor into worse levels of vulnerability.
CEE-HOPE is also demanding that the Lagos
State House of Assembly institute hearings
into the incident, with a view towards
addressing the issue and unearthing the
personalities and real reasons behind this
reckless, inhuman and lawless action which
has been ongoing in this state unhindered,
and which exacerbates the suffering of the
thereby violating the state’s supposed duty as
the hope of the poor and vulnerable.
DNA testing unveiling scandalous family secrets as Nigeria
ranks 2nd highest in paternity fraud in the world
Continues from pg 17
DNA Facts
DNA doesn’t change. It is set at conception
and generally does not change, a paternity
test can be performed on a person of any age—
even on a sample from an unborn child
(through prenatal testing). At birth,buccal
swab can be collected from the newborn.
Looks alone are never proof of paternity.
Many parentsinsist that their child looks just
like an alleged father and so they can’t
understand why a paternity test would
show that the possible father and the
child are not biologically related. A child
could be biologically related to a possible
father when they look nothing alike.
A child gets half of their DNA from
each parent.
The traits of a child are determined not
only by what their parents look like, but
all the genomes that came before, on both
sides of the family.
This genetic soup either can create a
child that looks exactly like one or more
parents, or a child that looks like neither,
or something in between.
The way DNA is written is such that it
is the arrangement that changes. “When
it is specific for you, your brothers DNA
can look like yours but will never be the
same all through the sequence even if you
are twins. it is even better than
fingerprint. DNA testing is very accurate
except those carrying out the analysis are
not experts.
There are no age restrictions for DNA
test participants. When collection is
performed by an adult as directed, the
cheek swabs are even safe for infants.
If the father isn’t available for a
paternity test, paternity can still be
determined by testing relatives of the
deceased father, such as the possible
father’s parents. Testing can also be done
for a brother or sister of the child or a
brother or sister of the possible father.
It’s a fundamental right to know where
one came from. Paternity is a question of
identity; it helps someone to form their
personality.
**This story was originally published
in the Saturday Vanguard of 4th May
2019