If Fatimoh Oloyede were a footballer, she would most likely make exploits as a dribbler. The mother of five had ‘ingeniously’ played two men into a dubious romance and deceived both to believe that they fathered her ‘only daughter’, Damola.

She had sustained the game of deceit for about 11 years until a few weeks ago when her castle of lies collapsed like a pack of cards as the two men found out that she had been deceiving them to believe they are the girl’s father.

The 38-year-old woman impregnated by a man in Ibadan had left the Southwest city for Lagos and lived with a man named Oluwasegun Benson for three months, telling him that she was pregnant with his child. Thereafter, she told Benson that she was going to visit her mother in Ibadan but instead went to the house of her other Lagos-based lover, Sharafa Biliaminu, where she stayed for another two months and also told him that she was pregnant for him. She then returned to Ibadan where she was eventually delivered of a baby girl that has since become the subject of a serious paternity row.

Fatimah was however interdicted by the operatives of the Frederick Fasehun-led faction of the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), Ifako-Ijaiye Chapter, when a member of the group, Sharafa, who is one of the two men laying claim to Damola’s paternity, discovered that Fatimoh had introduced the girl to another man as her father and had taken her to live in the man’s house.

Narrating his experience with Fatimoh in a chat with our reporter, Biliaminu said: “My name is Sharafa Biliaminu. I met Fatimoh through one of my sisters.

“She actually lured me into an affair after accompanying one of my acquaintances to a party I organised in Mushin, Lagos. I slept with her several times and she became pregnant.

“She told me that her father died and I gave her some money to visit Ibadan where he claimed her father was living.

“I did not accompany her on the trip because she had yet to formally introduce me to her family as her husband.

“I collected her mother’s phone number, but when I called the woman to commiserate with her, she vehemently denied that her husband (Fatimoh’s father) was dead, so I became confused.

“Although she told me that she was delivered of my child, I was upset when she said that her family members had named the baby Damola.

“She brought the baby to my house at Alagbado (Lagos), dumped her at my door, and bolted. But my mother, Mama Mushin, who is now late, took the baby from me and nursed her till she (mother) died.

“After my mother’s death, I encountered Fatimoh again while I was returning home with my boss. I even slept with her on that day.

“She asked after her daughter and requested to take the girl to live with her. I agreed.

“After some time, the girl came to my house one day and told me that her mother took her to the home of one of my brothers. I was startled.

“I later discovered that Fatimoh actually took Damola to another man, and I trailed her to the man’s (Benson’s) residence.

“I later discovered that Fatimoh took my daughter to Benson and also told him that Damola was his daughter. It was on that basis that I informed the leader of my faction of OPC and we arrested her.”

Giving his own account of the paternity saga, Benson said that Fatimoh was adept at leaving his house for her mother’s residence at Ibadan whenever she was pregnant and she would call to inform him that she had been delivered of a baby.

Benson recalled that he ignited the affair with Fatimoh about 20 years ago when he was fond of revelling at a beer joint in the Agege part of Lagos State.

Benson said: “I am an operative of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) in the Agege area of Lagos State. I work at one of the parks there.

“Usually, after the day’s work, there is a beer joint in town where we usually relax, and that was where I met Fatimoh who was then one of the attendants.

“One of my friends was actually dating her friend and I also started dating her around 2002/2003. She would sleep in my hotel room and return to where she was living because I had not got my personal accommodation then.

“She later told me that she was pregnant for me, and I declined responsibility because I knew that she lied a lot, and because she was working at a beer parlour where people like her are exposed to men.

“But she insisted that I was responsible for the pregnancy and I accepted. Shortly after, she vanished for about eight months and returned with a baby boy named Jibola, claiming that the baby was mine.

“I told her that I would accept the baby but I would not take her as my wife. I also promised that I would take charge of the boy’s upkeep.

“She said her brother and mother were the ones that named the baby, and I was giving her money for the baby. By then, I had got my own apartment and she started pleading with my younger sister to talk to me so that I could take her back. It was my sister that took her to my father and my father told me that I should accept her back.

“She moved in with me and we started living together as a couple. She took in again and disappeared when the pregnancy was five months old.

“She said she was visiting her mother, and a few months later, she called me on the phone, saying that she had been delivered of a baby girl and that I should send the name of the baby. I disagreed and told her to bring the baby to Lagos for proper christening.

“She later returned with the baby girl (Damola) and I refused to accept that the baby was mine. But after being persuaded by people, I accepted her and the baby and we lived together for about one and a half years until she left me again and only recently returned with the baby to be engulfed the current controversy.”

Fatimoh, however, explained that neither Sharafa nor Benson is the father of Damola. She explained that the real father of the girl is an Ibadan-based drummer identified simply as Bayo.

She said she could not explain what led her to deceive the duo to believe that they fathered her daughter.

She said: “My name is Fatimoh Adedeji. I am from Oje Compound in Ibadan, Oyo State. I am 38 years old. I

“I don’t live in Lagos. I live in Igbeti part of Oyo State. Benson Oloyede asked me to see him in Lagos, and I told him to wait till this week when I would be able to visit him at Agege, Lagos.

“Benson is my husband and Sharafa too is my husband. I met them at different times and places, but it was Benson I met before Sharafa.

“I met Benson while I was a beer parlour attendant in Agege. By then I had already had a son called Kayode with a man who is deceased.

“I would not lie; I was already dating Benson before my former husband died. I was shuttling between Agege and Ibadan where my husband was resident before he died.

“Along the line, I got pregnant and Benson told me that he was not responsible for the pregnancy, hence I returned to Ibadan hoping that I would deliver the baby there.

“I subsequently came back to the Kollington area of Alagbado, a Lagos suburb where I was assisting a woman to sell some items in a store. It was there that I met Sharafa’s sister (now deceased) who urged me to marry her brother because he had no wife at home.

“By then, the pregnancy was already three months old, and I explained to Sharafa’s sister who promised to give me a substance that could help abort the pregnancy so I could marry Sharafa.

“I took the substance and I believed the pregnancy was terminated because I saw blood after ingesting it.

“However, when I returned to Ibadan two months after, I noticed that my stomach was bulging. I visited a hospital for tests, which confirmed that the pregnancy was intact and five months old.

“My husband in Ibadan, who is now deceased, believed he was responsible for the pregnancy. Sharafa, who I spent more than two months with, believed the pregnancy was his, and Benson, who had initially denied the pregnancy, later accepted it because I insisted that he was the one that slept with me.

“However, it was Sharafa that threw a party on the day the baby was named.

“The baby, a girl, is more than 11 years old now. I don’t know how I managed to deceive three men to believe they are the father of my daughter.

“I did not live permanently with any of the three men. The real father of my daughter is called Bayo, hence neither Sharafa nor Benson is her father.

“I lied to Bayo, a drummer with a popular Fuji artiste, Tiri Leather, in Ibadan that I was coming back to Lagos to work. In Lagos, I spent more time with Benson than I did with Sharafa.

“I was never pregnant for Sharafa; it was his late sister that arranged our relationship.

“Sharafa actually asked me to come take my daughter after his mother (Mama Mushin) died. I was then living at Pelewura area of Lagos Island.

“He explained to me that the person he asked to take care of the girl was spending the money he gave him to take care of my daughter on betting.

“My first husband was Abideen. We had an Islamic wedding but he is late now.

“I have five children; four boys and a girl (Damola). I am pregnant with the sixth child.

“Damola’s real father, Bayo, knows there is a paternity issue with Damola. My present husband lives in Igbeti (Oyo State) and he is not aware that I am enmeshed in an issue like this.

“I don’t intend to date or have children for either Sharafa or Benson again because God has provided me with my own husband, and I cannot leave my daughter with them.”

Wearing a rather sullen look, Damola revealed how her embattled mother introduced her to two different men as her father.

She said: “My name is Damola Oloyede. From infancy, I was living with the mother of Daddy Sharafa called Mama Mushin until the woman died and my mother took me to Daddy Oloyede, who she told me is my father’s younger brother.

“She warned that I must embrace him and address him as my daddy. I did as she instructed until I returned to Daddy Sharafa and opened up on what happened and how my mother took me to another man (Benson), who she claimed was my father.”

Pleading for forgiveness from the men for her indiscretions, Fatimoh said: “I want Sharafa and Benson to forgive me and let go of this matter for the sake of God, because I don’t want my new husband to know about this matter at all.

“I don’t want the matter to destroy my new marriage.” (The Nation)

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