Son of Globacom boss, Mike Adenuga, Eniola, and his former girlfriend, Maggie Ogun, are in court over the custody of the child between them.
Some days ago, Eniola was granted custody of the child, a daughter, by an Igbosere Magistrate Court in Lagos, but the lady has appealed the judgement.
The billionaire’s son told the court that his baby mama was not capable of taking good care of the child and asked for the girl be handed over to him and his request was granted.
“Consequently, the applicant (Adenuga) is hereby granted an overnight access to the subject (child) every fortnight from 8 am on Saturday to 12 noon on Sunday,” Chief Magistrate O. A. Ogunbowale ruled.
The order, she said, took effect from March 16 and would subsist until the case is determined.
But, Ogun, a pharmacist, through her lawyer, Mrs Marian Jones of the International Federation of Women Lawyers, FIDA, has applied to the magistrate for leave to appeal the ruling.
Jones wants an order suspending the ruling’s execution, as well as an order praying for a stay of proceedings pending the appeal’s determination.
But the magistrate’s absence stalled the application’s hearing on Wednesday and also, Eniola applied to the court to change his counsel from the firm of Adesokan & Adesokan to Akintunde Williams & Co.
In his supporting affidavit in support of his motion for custody, the applicant, who works at Conoil Producing Limited, said he started “an amorous affair” with Ogun in October 2013.
He said she informed him in 2014 that she was pregnant with his child, following which he took full responsibility for their welfare.
Eniola disclosed that he paid for his former girlfriend’s ante natal care at Reddington Hospital, gave her N100,000 monthly and took her to London where she was delivered of a baby girl on October 23, 2014.
According to him, he paid the bills worth £22,000, purchased a first class Lagos-London return ticket for her, and accommodated her and her mother in his Cadogan Gardens, London home.
The applicant said Ogun returned to Lagos last January, three months after her delivery, and denied him access to the child.
His words, “I was denied access by the respondent to see my daughter on the ground that I was not interested in marrying her. I sought her understanding in this regard and reminded her of the fact that we had both agreed to end the relationship as it was heading to nowhere.”
Eniola said Ogun’s mother insisted that he would only see the child on the condition that he married Ogun. Thus, he was not allowed to see his child between last March and October.
According to him, on one occasion that he was allowed access to the house, he observed that Ogun left his daughter in the care of a security man who doubled as houseboy/nanny and her grandmother, a septuagenarian.
“I was shocked at the unhealthy, unhygienic and unsafe environment in which my daughter was being brought up,” he said, adding that he sends N200,000 to Ogun monthly for their upkeep.
Eniola revealed that he enrolled his daughter at a world-class crèche where he paid N600,000 per term. He said he was only able to see his daughter when he organised a birthday party for her, and when he took her and Ogun to Dubai on holiday.
“On getting back to Nigeria, the respondent reverted to denying me custody and access to my daughter,” he told the court.
Speaking on why he seeks to have custody of the child, Eniola said Ogun is unwilling to create time needed to care for his daughter physically, emotionally and mentally and that he reasonably believes his child currently lacks motherly attention.
But Ogun, in her counter-claim, said she never denied her erstwhile boyfriend access to his child. She said from last May to October, she took her daughter to the applicant’s mother’s residence in Victoria Island every weekend.
She said she also took the daughter to the applicant’s father’s house on Banana Island at least three times a week and sometimes slept over.
According to Ogun, problem arose when Eniola’s mother demanded that she and the daughter spend two weeks monthly at her residence. Ogun said her family refused because she was not married to him.
According to her, she was trying to resolve the issue amicably when Eniola, on October 13, 2015, came to her home in company of a policeman demanding that his daughter be produced, and in the process assaulted her mother and damaged her phone when she tried to record the scene.
She denied keeping her daughter in the care of a security man, saying: “During my working hours and prior to when my daughter started attending crèche, she is left in the care of my grandmother and my nanny.”
Ogun also denied that her daughter is being brought up in an unhygienic and unsafe environment. She claimed she pays her daughter’s medical bills at Reddington Hospital, adding that Eniola was not solely responsible for her daughter’s welfare.
Ogun said a doctor certified her daughter to be fit and healthy and that despite being born with a low birth weight of 2.7kg, her current growth pattern was more than satisfactory. Besides, she said the only time her daughter was ill, she was diagnosed with an infection common to children when they start crawling and teething and was promptly treated.
“I have never denied the applicant access to my daughter, rather, he wants custody. I don’t believe it is in my daughter’s interest that the applicant be granted custody of my daughter,” she said.
According to her, Eniola “is not suited to cope with the demands of having full custody of a 16-month old female child.” She added that “he does not have a definite schedule” and “comes home by 12
I****ILE, read your own write up… all he was awarded is overnight visitation rights twice a month, NOT CUSTODY. You need to go back to school. No one is going to give him full custody of a cat.