A judge had an only son who was an uncontrollable rascal. All attempts to bring this boy to the path of sanity by all concerned parties including the highly embarrassed legal luminary father failed woefully. This culminated that one day after a highly embarrassing mischievous act that bridged on criminality by the errant son, the flustered judge called his wife and asked directly ‘Who is the father of this boy, for obviously he is not mine’
Sometime last year, in Ikoyi, a high brow area of Lagos the economic city of Nigeria, a supposedly very loving middle class family was said to have generated a terrible morbid news. A young man was said to have stabbed his wife to death, in a most macabre way one can think of some one killing someone they love.
What was the problem? The paternity of their child was in question.
Now just last week, as the highly globally volatile 2020 was coming to an end, a most scandalous case came out from the banking sector of Nigeria. An up and coming banker dropped dead in his house because his wife of many years told him that his two kids whom he has invested so much love, affection and money are not his children. He had suffered a heart attack. The story has it that the boss of his wife who is the overall boss of the bank is actually the father of these kids. The woman ran over to the US and there callously announced to the man than the children he has dotted upon for years are not he’s. The poor man over time tried to brave it out, he got into another relationship, but penultimate to the nuptial he suffered a heart attack and dropped dead.
This occurrence has generated so much reactions from all spectrum of the social and main stream media expressionist all over the globe. Some think the man was a sour loser and should not whine and die over mere issue like a proof of paternity in a world where children abound. He could easily adopt other children if he was fixated on children. After all the onus of the responsibilities of the children rests on the woman and the claimed father and not on him. Others on the other hand say that the woman should be brought to book. If there really was legal marriage, she had no right to break the vows with such blatant flagrancy and not be punished in any way.
Though the woman has claimed marital brutality, the true antagonist in this drama is the bank boss who it is has abused all tenets of the office to mess around with a sub ordinate staff and made her pregnant not once but twice.
Like I said earlier, reactions from all over the world are coming thick and fast on this matter.
In Europe and indeed all over the Western world where issues of immigration have become heavy, when one tries to institutes family reunion with members of the family from their country of origin, there is demanded by the authorities a compulsory DNA proof of relationship. The stories of heart break and even suicides that have ensued front this are not necessary to be listed here.
There are so many responses to this issue, as many think that it really does not matter who the biological father is, but what matters is that he who raised the child and who he or she bears the name is the father, period. The conclusion of this school of though is that the raiser is the father.
The other mindset are more traditional and insist that the true father of a child need be identified especially for inheritance purposes.
Cultural, religious, and legal expressions defer and vary on this issue. Some are virtually apathetic on it, while some view it as a start and end all in the sociology of any given society.
What do you think?
