14 years after, man returns from abroad to claim son he asked to abort

A man, Emmanuel Eze, who had just returned from a 14-year sojourn abroad, has approached a customary court sitting in Mapo, Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, to allow him take custody of his son, Chukwuebuka, from his former wife, Adaeze Uwalifor, who is the boy’s mother. Uwalifor admitted before the court that Eze was, indeed, […]

A man, Emmanuel Eze, who had just returned from a 14-year sojourn abroad, has approached a customary court sitting in Mapo, Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, to allow him take custody of his son, Chukwuebuka, from his former wife, Adaeze Uwalifor, who is the boy’s mother.

Uwalifor admitted before the court that Eze was, indeed, her boyfriend when she was younger and at a time she truly got pregnant for him, but he asked her to terminate the pregnancy.

She said he refused to take care of her during the pregnancy because she refused to terminate it.

She further told the court that when she had malaria, Eze told her to go to a hospital, alleging he had requested the doctor there to give her injection to terminate the pregnancy. The doctor, she said thankfully, did not, however, heed that request.

Narrating many difficulties she said confronted her when she was pregnant, she alleged that while Eze was abroad, his brother refused to give her a sum of N500 she had needed for a scan when the doctor told her to do the scan when she was almost due to be delivered of the baby and there was a minor problem about its position. In another instance, she said it was her father who paid the hospital bill when she gave birth.

Uwalifor said Eze, when she was about eight months pregnant, approached her parents to release her and the baby to him but he was asked to do the necessary things according to tradition. She added that after some consultations, her parents released them to him and he said he would be taking them to a photography studio for a photo shot.

“Unknowingly to us, he just wanted to use the photograph to travel. Shortly after, he left and since then I have been taking care of my child alone,” she said.

Eze told the court that all he wanted was its approval to take custody of Chukwuebuka as Uwalifor is now married to another man.  He said his appeal to his “in-laws” (Uwalifor’s parents) to have custody of his son had been fruitless as they drove him away when he visited them after he returned. “My in-law did not give the child the name I sent them from abroad,” he said.

The president of the court, Chief Ademola Odunade, held that with the evidence before the court, it is obvious that Eze had not been taking care of the child since the boy was delivered.

Odunade ordered that Uwalifor should continue to have the custody of her son, while Eze should be paying N10,000 monthly for his feeding till he is old enough to take decisions for himself.