Jilted Woman Slams N50m Suit On Briton

A Lagos business woman, Fakuma Ibiwari Lilly, alleged to have been forcefully ejected by her British lover, David Simon Ross, has dragged the man before a Federal High Court, claiming N50 million as damages.

According to the averment, Fakuma Ibiwari alleged that she met David Simon Ross sometime in July, 2010 when he asked her to be his girlfriend. She said she acceded to his request and they began to go out together.

She averred further that she was living at 35, Alpha Beach Road, Lekki, where she paid N350,000 per annum before her lover pleaded with her to move into his apartment.

According to her, she refused the move initially, but his persistent pleadings and promises to go to her home town to see her parents by December 2010 to arrange for their marriage, prompted her to ask him of his marriage and he told her that he had been judicially separated from his wife in Britain, his home country.

Thereafter, she said she moved into his apartment and since then, they have been living together peacefully and she usually cooked his food on his request although they had a steward.

In November, 2010, she said she was ill and was given some money to go for treatment. She later went for pregnancy test and the result proved that she was nine weeks pregnant and had to register for ante natal care and periodic check ups.

However, the applicant said on 10 of December, 2010, she was surprised when some policemen from Maroko Police Station invited her to their station and asked her to write a statement that her relationship with Mr. Ross had been terminated and she was later taken back home and ejected from the premises.

According to her, the defendant had told her that he was ejecting her based on the petition written by his employer, Alumaco Plc and she then took the matter to Area A Police Command, where she narrated her ordeal.

Her lover, she said, then promised to be paying her N21,000 allowance monthly until she delivered her baby and N100,000 for her rent, but the monthly allowance could not take care of her as an expectant mother while N100,000 as rent could not pay for a decent accommodation in Lekki.

The Area Commander then directed his men to treat the matter as civil and in view of this, the applicant is asking for N50 million being general and exemplary damages for brazen infringement of her fundamental right to personal liberty, while she is also asking for a monthly allowance of N300,000.

In his counter affidavit, Simon Ross averred that as per the terms of his contract of employment, he was allocated an official two-bedroom residence by Alumaco Plc as a bachelor and unaccompanied since he did not intend to bring in any member of his family to Nigeria to live with him.

He averred further that he met the applicant at a night club on Victoria Island in late August 2010 and after some time, she complained to him of having accommodation problem consequent upon which he offered her temporary accommodation and insisted that since they have been sleeping together they should get married.

He said further that in November 2010 the applicant informed him that she was three months pregnant and thereafter became quarrelsome and that one of such quarrels got to the notice of his employers who after enquiry, discovered that he has been harbouring her.

His employers, he said, then asked him to address the situation and the applicant was then asked to leave the apartment, while he offered to assist her with a N20,000 monthly allowance until she delivers the baby and conducts DNA test to confirm fatherhood of the child and if it is confirmed that he is the father, he would take full responsibility for the child’s upbringing.

Rather than accept this proposal, he said the applicant became abusive and threatened to organise for him to be kidnapped, hence he had to lodge a criminal complaint at Maroko Police Station and then she moved out of his apartment voluntarily.

But in order to force him to part with a huge amount of money, she went to Area A Police Command, Lion Building, Lagos, to lodge a complaint against him that he was about to abscond from Nigeria and abandon her.

Mr. Ross then averred that none of the applicant’s reliefs are covered by the Fundamental Right Enforcement Procedure Rule 2009 as her right has not been breached in any way, rather, her relationship with her was purely on promise of friendship which is not justifiable and cannot form a cause of action under fundamental right enforcement rules and therefore urged the court to dismiss the suit.

—Akin Kuponiyi