I was close to tears, so close I wondered what was wrong with me. I just couldn’t stomach the bean being spilled. The journey to my teary state started early Sunday when clips of Kokoro Alate, a programme by ace Ibadan -based broadcast journalist and Agidigbo FM proprietor, Oriyomi Hamzat, hit the social media. In it, a man, Kola, has just discovered the four children he thought he fathered aren’t his. DNA tests revealed his wife, Toyin, committed paternity fraud.
To get the whole perspectives, I sought the complete video and watched it. In it, Toyin faults the DNA tests because she wasn’t there when the samples were taken. Kola’s tears keep cascading down his cheeks and the presenter keeps urging him to stop crying.
The video reminds me of a short story in my book ‘Vaults of Secrets’. The story titled ‘Open Wound’ is narrated by the conscience of a woman at the centre of a paternity fraud, who is intent on keeping the secret forever.
The woman, Dazini, was married to Colonel Edward Dibiana. His first marriage had failed, but he had three kids to show for it. That was enough assurance for Dazini that he was a man. They married a little over a year later.
One year after they got married, she was yet to become pregnant and she became worried. They had sex as time permitted, but it just did not result in what she wanted.
‘I am worried about your inability to get pregnant,’ her husband complained one day.
Dazini was taken aback.
‘What do you mean by that?’
Before he could say anything further, she added: ‘Are you not the one who is supposed to get me pregnant? Be a man and do your duty.’
One week after this quarrel, Dazini decided to go and see a gynaecologist. She had planned to go with her husband, but he turned her down. His reason: It was her problem and she should solve it. He pointed at the fact that he had kids from his previous marriage to back his belief that the problem could not have been from him.
Dr. Adeola Akinremi, who attended to her at the Warri Specialist Hospital, was very polite. He asked questions nobody else would have asked, and she answered them all. When he asked her if she had been pregnant before, she was glad her husband was not there to hear her answer the question truthfully. He was worried about where she did the evacuation and asked her to run some tests.
The hospital had a fantastic laboratory, so she did not have to go out for the tests. She returned to see the doctor one week after and the cheerful way he received her told her there was no cause for alarm.
‘I have gone through the tests’ results and there is absolutely no reason why you should not conceive once you are having sex with a virile man,’ he said. ‘I’d like to see your husband to run some tests on him too.’
Dazini’s heart was heavy because she felt the tests must have gotten something wrong. Her husband, for all she cared, had proved himself by having children from his previous marriage. Not one. Not two. But three. ‘The problem must be with me,’ she concluded.
At home, Dazini briefed her husband about what the doctor said. When she asked him if he would see the doctor, he flared up and accused her of wanting to subject him to ridicule. For the first time since she married him, she queried his literacy. What educated man would see running a fertility test as ridicule?
Dazini cried for days but managed to appear like an iron lady at work. Her subordinates both loved and revered her and she did not want them to see her as a weakling.
For weeks, their home experienced a cold war. She returned to the hospital to brief Dr Akinremi. Even though he did not expressly say it, she had a feeling he was disappointed that her husband could take such a stand.
That night after leaving the hospital, she began to wonder if all was well with her husband, but his children from his previous marriage were evidence to the contrary. It also occurred to her that the problem could have arisen without him knowing years after having those kids. Dazini was confused and kept to herself. Even though they slept on the same bed, they were strangers. He had a big ego and he would not allow it to be touched. She saw him as a selfish man, who would not mind her just warming his bed because he already had kids from another woman.
Dazini began to loathe him. But she also wanted a child, so she continued sleeping with him. One day he saw her praying for a child and he joined her. Another time, he saw her watching a televangelist asking women looking for the fruit of the womb to touch their tummy and pray fervently, he joined in and she loved him for it.
It did not take time before Dazini put behind her any thought of him having any medical challenge. Somehow, the loathing disappeared. They got their groove back, travelled the world together and lived without care. He pampered her and played more than the role of a husband. He was also like her father and she was glad for this and it made her love him the more.
The paradise Dazini thought she had created with her husband collapsed when she ran into Moses, whom she had not seen for years. He was a politician in Cross River State and was at that time exploring the possibility of becoming a local government chairman. He insisted that they had dinner. Since her husband was not in town, she felt there was nothing wrong with having dinner with an old friend. They agreed to meet at the Presidential Hotel at 7pm.
By 7pm, Dazini met him waiting for her at the reception of the hotel.
‘Gentleman,’ she said on seeing him already waiting for her.
‘You don’t keep a lady waiting,’ he said and led her to the Chinese restaurant.
They had an excellent dinner, dotted with animated conversations, spurts of laughter and too much red wine. When the dinner was over, Moses would not allow her to leave. He pleaded that she should follow him to his room upstairs.
‘What do you want to tell me upstairs that you cannot tell me here?’ she asked him. She was already a bit tipsy.
As he tried to raise his hand to plead his case further, his hand mistakenly touched her left breast and she simply died. She could feel a familiar but strange sensation all over her body. In that instant, memories of the past came flooding. She tried to block them out, reminding herself that she was now married and should allow such memories to die.
Signs that Moses was going to be a permanent feature in her life started emerging when she discovered she was pregnant a month after their steamy session. Even though she was not sure who was responsible at that time, she was glad to have a baby to call her own. She told herself that the baby was her husband’s. Didn’t they make love three days after her session with Moses? When Dazini informed her husband that she was pregnant, the man was excited. I am a man, he said over and over, punching the air.
When the baby came, he was over the moon as though he had never seen a baby before. He looks just like me; he said—my carbon copy.
Before Dazini knew it, Toni was six years old and still no other child. It was around this time she started to get seriously worried. It was also around this time that she ran into Moses again.
Dazini ran into Moses when she was part of a delegation sent by her company, Scodies Oil, to the Cross River State Government House. Moses was there in his capacity as Special Adviser to the Governor on Commerce. He maintained his composure throughout the meeting, while a storm raged in Dazini. When they broke for lunch, he sent an aide to give her his card with a short note that said ‘Please call’.
They met again. Not long after, she discovered she was pregnant. Dazini was convinced that Moses was the father of Toni and the one in her womb. She also knew that it was a truth that she would never share. It was a secret she would carry to the grave.
My final take: Toyin should be given the benefit of doubt. Repeat DNA tests should be conducted with the samples taken in her presence. If confirmed that all the four children aren’t Kola’s, she should face some music. We need to have laws against paternity fraud. It is unfair for a man to raise kids only for him to discover years later that they aren’t his. Many cases are coming up these days. Thanks to DNA they are being unearthed.
