Teenager Rejects Father, Prefers Mother
Proceedings in a divorce case at the Alimosho Grade ‘B’ Customary Court, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria was temporarily halted when a 15-year old boy, Olalekan Oladokun, ran into the court and told the president that he doesn’t want to live with his father again.
The teenager shouted and begged the court to allow his mother who is engaged in a bitter divorce row with his father take custody of him. He accused his father of not taking care of him and refusing to send him to school.
”My father does not provide the money to feed me and my younger siblings. As a result of this, I have to seek job as a bricklayer to be able to feed myself,” he stated.
Olalekan told the court further that since his mother packed out of his father’s house, he has not been able to gain admission into any secondary school, adding that he withdrew from his former school where he was in SS1 because his father could not pay the school fees which was being paid by his mother when she was with him.
He disclosed that his father was trying to register him in a public school but has not done so and pleaded with the court to allow him return to his mother so that he can continue his education.
His father who was dumbfounded by what the boy told the court appealed to the president of the court to give him time to solve the boy’s problem. He promised to enrol him in school the following Monday.
He also asked the court to warn his estranged wife to stop threatening him.
In his remarks, the president of the court advised the parties to maintain the status quo and adjourned the matter till 9 March, 2011.
Trouble started for the family when the boy’s mother, Mrs. Omolara Oladokun filed a petition before the court seeking the dissolution of her marriage to Mr. Tunde Oladokun because of irreconciliable differences.
The petitioner revealed that she left her husband about four months ago when he started making trouble with her.
She accused the respondent of not taking care of her and the three children of the marriage, adding that Tunde doesn’t pay the children’s school fees.
—Mayowa David
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