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• Reasons infidelity by women won’t end soon
By Enyeribe Ejiogu and Agatha Emeadi
There is tension, anxiety and worry in many marriages. The intensity is growing, particularly among women who may have played the field before settling into marriage or had flings while married and came away with corn seeds sown by men who are not their husbands. Some of the corn seeds got sown just before they wedded with the legal husband.
The primary cause of the disquiet and anxiety of several married women is the 2025 Annual DNA Testing Report, released by Smart DNA Nigeria, which showed that one out of every four children may not belong to the publicly known fathers.
The result came from analysis of data from tests conducted by SMART DNA Nigeria from July 2024 to June 2025. The report showed that the national paternity exclusion rate currently stands at 25 per cent.
In simple language, based on the result of the study, 25 of every 100 children tested belong to external fathers not known to the family or known only to the wives (the key culprits in the birth of such children.) This revelation has set off alarm bells in the hearts of such women. They are on tenterhooks and privately wishing that it wouldn’t get into the minds of their husbands to have a wee-bit doubt about being the father of their children and therefore want to have DNA-based confirmation of their paternity.
Ever since Lynx Laboratories, the earliest such facility took off and started offering various types of DNA tests, embassies have been demanding such cocksure confirmation of the parental relationship between children and their supposed parents who want to relocate abroad.
Similarly, the Lagos State DNA and Forensic Centre (LSD &FC), offers such services and more. To date, it has provided expert witness evidence in 2536 paternity cases, according to information on its website. The DNA test required by embassies now causes trepidation in the hearts of both men and women. It is worse in women who may have played some away matches and had quietly maintained what the irrepressible Fela Anikulakpo-Kuti referred to as “chop and clean mouth” disposition, to the love child that resulted from the dalliance just before marriage, or was deliberately conceived as a living memento of the time shared with the ex-lover. But the availability of DNA testing services is now causing such women anxiety.
Pause for one moment and imagine the shock, pain, agony and the psychological trauma a man goes through the instant he discovers that the son or daughter he has been parenting with a combination of joy, happiness and dedication as well as diligently providing for his/her upkeep, hiring private lesson teachers, paying school fees and even may have escorted to write JAMB UTME at a CBT centre, turns out not to be his biological child.
The pain of the discovery can cause a man in such an unfortunate situation to experience Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, says Dr. Daberechi Ihebuzor, a medical doctor.
According to Ihebuzor, the medical condition was given the name by Japanese cardiologists who first described it. Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, which is also known as “stress cardiomyopathy” or “broken heart syndrome,” is a temporary heart condition often triggered by intense emotional or physical stress. The major symptoms of this include chest pain, shortness of breath, and abnormal heart rhythms, which present like a person having a heart attack. The condition can be triggered by severe emotional stress (like grief, fear, or extreme anger), physical stress, or other medical conditions.
“The good thing is that it can be reversed with appropriate medical care. However, the person may experience subsequent complications.”
He explains further: “If a man gets really bad news associated with a shocking DNA test result, then it is very possible for the man to experience a stress-induced pathophysiological incident, whereby there will be a surge of what we call catecholamine, which will affect the function of the heart.” Where the victim gets proper medical treatment and supportive care, most people recover from it within days to weeks.
Marital infidelity has been identified as a major cause of spousal disagreements or even domestic violence that can lead to untimely death. Not too long ago, a man in Edo State reportedly beat the wife to within an inch of her life because of infidelity. The woman lost four teeth. From the report in the news media, it was gathered that the man was arranging to move his family from Benin to Canada. The embassy demanded that he and the children should undergo a DNA test to prove his paternity of the children. The man readily agreed. However, the result of the test revealed that all the three children the wife claimed to be his were not his biological children.
Upon hearing that result, he flew into volcanic anger when the wife could not give him a concrete explanation. He pounced on her and beat her blue and black.
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In another instance, a couple in the United States, Peter and Alice, returned to Nigeria, to supervise their projects. At some point, the husband told the wife to stay back and monitor on-going projects while he returned to the US to earn more money and send to her. In the process of supervising the projects, she renewed a relationship with the ex-boyfriend. She got impregnated by the boyfriend. Alice sought to terminate the pregnancy and was willing to pay in hard currency. The medical doctor refused to grant her request.
Thoughts ran riot in her mind. How will her husband feel if the bubble burst? How will her grown children see her? How can she explain the unfortunate situation to both her own family and in-laws?
It was also reported that a Delta State High Court Judge wept bitterly after he allegedly discovered that three children he had with his ex-wife were not his biological offspring. In a statement, the judge said his ex-wife walked away from the marriage when their youngest child was six years old. The judge got the information from an anonymous source that his last child who was 17 years at the time was not biologically his. He summoned courage to conduct a DNA test on the three children from the previous marriage. That was how he discovered that none of them was biologically his.
The list of women who have had children with men that are not their husbands is endless. A man found out that his wife-to-be was still having sex with the Reverend Father of the parish. When a little bird whispered to him that the fiancé was still seeing the priest-boyfriend, the man said: “Anyone having an affair with a Rev. Fr is far gone from redemption.” He promptly cancelled the wedding, not minding that all necessary preparations had taken place.
Out in Amuwo Odofin area of Lagos State, Jannie Roberts who lives in a well-furnished duplex got into a romantic tryst with a younger male person with six packs she met at a gym in the area. Beautiful Jannie, allegedly from Rivers State, was very well provided for by the husband, a wealthy importer and distributor of transformers and other electrical equipment. He often travelled to and spent weeks in China and other Asian nations to transact deals. When her illicit affair was discovered by a friend, her defence was that she needed sexual attention and her husband was rarely available to give it to her.
Of all accusations of infidelity, the case involving a son-in-law who got intimate with his relatively young mother-in-law happens to be the worst. Idehen impregnated his 17-year-old girlfriend, Faith, and was compelled to marry her. Within months, Faith gave birth and the mother came to care for her and the baby. Idehen was extra nice to the mother-in-law to the extent of taking her out for drinks. On one such occasion, both got drunk and ended up in a hotel for a quickie. Unfortunately the hotel belonged to Idehen’s landlord, who cursed them for the abomination, when they came out.
Infidelity is an issue that has been studied by experts in psychology and behavioural sciences. Prof George Onyekwere Nworgu is a professor of Critical Thinking and Philosophy of Science at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Ogun State.
Commenting on the increasing infidelity and its various ramifications, he said: “Infidelity in women has always been there. But the idea of DNA is becoming very rampant. Men advertise their escapades while women hide their own. So, if there is no study, one can never know of this. For every unfaithful man, there is an unfaithful woman. How does the man become unfaithful if there is no unfaithful partner?”
Prodded that an unfaithful man could simply focus on single ladies, he responded: “I once had a friend who claimed he had slept with over 800. As at the time he was making this claim, he was in his 30’s. He said he had started when he was above 18, and continued when he got married. There is no woman that will admit this. Even if she was a prostitute, she will never agree. Women do not open up. Infidelity has always been there, unless one is saying that unmarried women do it far more than unmarried men. Then, if unmarried women do not do it more than unmarried men, it then means that the unmarried men may be having affairs with married women; just as married men are having affairs with unmarried women. If the unmarried girls are not having sex far more than unmarried boys, then, one cannot look at the extra for the unmarried men. I have always tried to let people know that it takes two to tango. Infidelity has always been there, only that people are now going for DNA.”
Dr Charles Umeh, a clinical psychologist and sex therapist at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) agrees with the summation of Prof Nworgu. He said: “Infidelity is on-going and that is why there are DNA tests these days. When a man suspects that his supposed child is not his, he goes for a DNA test. We have stories of couples that got separated because they discovered the children they thought were theirs were not really theirs.”
A study based on a questionable methodology once claimed that Nigerian married women were the most promiscuous in the world. Umeh roundly dismissed this. “Which study is telling this? Let us discuss promiscuity. In the first place, studies have led us to understand that black men do not know how to get it right with women in bed. They feel that sexual experience is not worthwhile or that the man is not good enough. Invariably, they might look for someone that will satisfy them. When it comes to women, a lot will tell you they do not know what orgasm is. Every successful sex is supposed to culminate into orgasm for both partners so it will be well consummated. In family therapy, that is what I teach some couples, so they will be able to know how to kick-start at the same time so everyone will enjoy the sexual experience.”
Infidelity is causing societal depravity. Children born from acts of infidelity, when such is revealed, would expectedly cause emotional trauma. Umeh conceded, saying: “Yes, it causes a lot of emotional distress on the man. When a man gives birth, there is a bond and love that come with it. After having such bond with such a child and then discover that the child is not yours anymore, many men have gone into depression, some even commit suicide because they think their world has collapsed. Their questions would be ‘how would people see me and the situation.’ Depends on cultures, most men are proud of their families, such that when their family is seen, one would see the greatness in the man. To now think that the heir apparent to the throne is no longer yours after all the love, bond, care and sending them to the best schools, to think that the child is no longer yours. Some require intervention.”
A female socialist, who wants to remain anonymous, chipped in: “Infidelity is very rampant everywhere, in institutions, religious and worship centres, offices and business areas. Women no longer hide under marriage; they go out and get sexually satisfied when their men cannot deliver. Some would tell you that it is the side-boy servicing them that is making their marriage to work, otherwise they would have taken a walk from the marriage, especially when the children are grown.”
