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By Brown Chimezie
It is battle royale between Mrs. Elizabeth Okafor and Miss Emelia Okafor, on one side, and Irene Akowe, on the other side, over the custody of eight-year-old Miss Victory Eshonhion Samuel Emelia. The young girl has been the subject of a bitter legal battle between the two families.
Court papers obtained by this reporter show that Elizabeth Okafor and Emelia Okafor, mother and daughter, were members of the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministry (MFM) in Asaba, Delta State, when Emelia was a teenage girl. In 2012, Emelia became pregnant at 15. She was allegedly put in the family way by a pastor in the church who was no stranger to her family.
On May 17, 2013, she was delivered of a baby girl called Victory. The pastor in question allegedly refused responsibility and distanced himself from the Okafors, who at the time were resident in Asaba.
Unwilling to let the world know that her teenage daughter had become a ‘Baby Mama’ to a pastor, Elizabeth and her daughter, Emelia, took the baby to Benin and handed her over to an old friend, Irene Akowe.
Akowe and Elizabeth were not only close friends, both were members of the MFM in Asaba when Akowe was resident there while working as a staff of a transport company. The baby was exactly seven days old when she was handed over to Akowe.
There are conflicting narratives as to what the original plans of the Okafors were when the seven-day-old baby was handed to Akowe. Michael Ajangbadi, Akowe’s lawyer, said in court papers that his client (Akowe) “was informed by Mrs. Eliabeth Okafor that her daughter (Emelia Okafor) was raped by an unknown man and had put to bed a baby girl and the said baby was brought with her to our client’s house in order to shield her daughter from public disgrace, criticism and shame. She further pleaded for the baby and her daughter to take refuge with our client. And, in the spirit of true friendship and Christianity, our client agreed.”
While Elizabeth returned to Asaba, Emelia stayed back to be breastfeeding her child. However, she did not stay long. Akowe claimed that mother and grandmother tacitly abandoned the baby with her. A retiree, she faced great challenges providing milk, diapers, medicines, clothing and other care a newborn baby would need.
The biggest challenge, according to Akowe, was medical bills. She said the baby was very sickly, a situation that saw her going in and out of hospitals on a weekly basis. One night, the child lapsed into critical condition. Having exhausted all her life savings, she had to put an urgent call to her brother, a businessman living in Port Harcourt.
Her brother’s intervention did not only save the life of little Victory, it marked a change of fate for the beleaguered baby. Akowe’s brother, Samuel, assumed the role of a father, providing nourishing care and watching her grow from a tot to a pre-school infant and on to a brilliant pupil in one of the prestigious schools in Benin City.
At age seven, Victory did not only own a personal computer, she could perform prodigious tasks with the device. For the young girl, father was Samuel, while mother was Irene Akowe. The child was so brilliant that she won the MFM Children’s Bible Quiz Competition in Edo State and won again in a zonal competition held in Delta State. She was to proceed to Lagos for the grand finale where she would have received a scholarship from MFM founder, Daniel Olukoya, had she won, but crisis came to rock her life
The stability, peace and loving care surrounding the life of little Victory was one day shattered when her biological mother Emelia and grandmother Elizabeth turned up to claim her. Predictably, Akowe resisted her old friend, questioning her temerity to turn up to pick up a child she and her daughter abandoned years ago. Court papers said, for the seven years, there was no “form of communication and interaction or visitation from Miss Emelia Okafor.”
When the baby was one year old, Akowe called the Okafors to at least give the child a name. The response was laissez faire. The Okafors’ lawyer, P.E. Ewah, said in the court papers that his clients at the time were “under excruciating social circumstances.”
On the child’s second birthday, Akowe again contacted her friend but neither Elizabeth nor Emelia came to Benin. It was in 2017 when Victory was almost four years old that the Okafors appeared and accosted her in MFM church with policemen on accusation of child theft.
Akowe recalled that, when the baby was brought to her at seven days old, anyone could tell from the appearance and body odour she had never received a bath. It appeared Emelia delivered the baby in hiding and brought her to Benin in that condition. It took years to battle the odour problem but that was nothing compared to a bone ailment that affected the baby’s leg and made her unable to walk straight for years.
It was reported that the child had rickets, which Akowe’s brother, Samuel, spent a lot of money to correct in several hospitals, including Stella Obasanjo Children Hospital.
In addition to the police, the Okafors reported the matter to the anti-human trafficking agency, NAPTIP, and later to the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA). Akowe said she endured harassment and intimidation but resisted all efforts to make her relinquish the child. And that was how the matter wound up in court.
She was of the belief that it was the MFM pastor, who allegedly got Emelia pregnant in 2012, that wanted the child and was from behind the scenes bankrolling Emelia and her mother to use the police, lawyers, NAPTIP and every government authority they can find to intimidate her.
Ewah, a septuagenarian and lawyer to Elizabeth and Emelia Okafor, admitted to this reporter that Irene Akowe truly took good care of baby Victory, especially giving her good education. He, however, added that the relationship between the three women took a sinister turn when Akowe secretly relocated with the baby to another part of Benin-City, necessitating the Okafors to seek the help of the police in tracking her. Akowe said she moved house for the baby’s and her own safety.
The custody battle for Victory, known as Suit No. B/76/08/17, was playing out at High Court No. 8 before Justice M.N. Asemota, when the Okafors allegedly sold a dummy to Irene Akowe’s lawyer. Perhaps sensing that the outcome of the court process might not be favourable to them, the Okafors pleaded for out-of-court settlement.
Terms of settlement
On March 31, 2021, the terms of settlement were filed and made the judgement of court. All pending court cases in the High Court and Court of Appeal were withdrawn. All complaints to any law enforcement agencies such as the police, NAPTIP, etcetera, by the Okafors against Akowe were also withdrawn.
Co-parenting was the spirit of the settlement. Both families should cooperate and contribute to the proper upbringing, education, learning and training of Victory in her chosen field of human endeavour. There was no order on cost as both families were told to bear their respective costs.
The court ordered that Victory should live with Akowe during school session but on holidays should go to her biological mother. The arrangement was to subsist till after her primary school education in 2023 and could be extended thereafter, if necessary, by the court. The order also spelt out that no travel passport and visa must be procured for the little girl by Akowe without the consent of the biological mother, neither could she be taken outside the country.
It ended with a warning to both families: “Take notice that unless you obey the direction contained in the order, you will be liable to contempt of court and will be imprisoned.”
On the same day the settlement was made by the court, the Okafors initiated arrangements to take Victory with them to spend the Easter holiday with them. They agreed to return the girl to Akowe on April 7, 2021, when the third term school session would begin.
To have easy communication with the girl while she was away in Anambra, Akowe bought an Android phone, valued at N68,000, and gave it to Victory.
All through the holidays, however, Akowe could not communicate with the little girl as the phone was switched off. Frustrated, she ran to the Okafors’ counsel, P.E. Ewah, who then called his client on their mobile. They took his call. Akowe insisted she wanted to speak with Victory, whom she could hear crying bitterly in the background. Elizabeth, who was on the other end of the line, ended the call abruptly.
Akowe’s worst fears became a reality when the expected date for the child to return to Benin came and passed with no trace of the child nor word from the Okafors. The distraught guardian has accused Ewah of refusing to disclose the contact details of Elizabeth and Emelia Okafor whose mission to Benin apparently was to abduct Victory. Samuel told the reporter that Ewah accommodated the Okafors in his house in Benin, adding that there was no way the lawyer could have handed the child to the Okafors, if he didn’t know their home address.
It is almost one year after. Another Easter holiday is about to come; yet Victory’s whereabouts remain unknown.
When contacted, Ewah spoke to this reporter from his sick bed. He said he was down in debilitating health. He denied conspiracy in the alleged abduction of little Victory. He said there was no way he could be happy by the actions of his clients, adding that, in his show of concern over the unexpected development, he almost crossed the ethical line, educating Irene Akowe on the next steps she could take.
