When Mrs. Modupe Mofikoya, the immigration officer who attended to the Adeleke travelling party accosted Ashley Coco Adeleke and asked for the mother of the baby, Ashley Adeleke claimed that she was the mother. Immediately, the immigration officer on duty collected her Nigerian international passport, she quickly absconded from the scene with the baby and her father, Mr Deji Adeleke, showed up shortly afterwards to try to clear his daughter’s mess.
Our client with the help of her family members, including Mr Dele Momodu, determinedly resisted the attempt by Miss Ashley Coco Adeleke and her father, Mr Deji Adeleke, from taking Aurora Imade Adeleke from Lagos yesterday. Our client believes that the pair are trying to take the child to America and thus put her out of the reach of the biological mother.
At the moment, Miss Ashley Coco Adeleke and our client’s daughter, Aurora Imade Adeleke
are still in Lagos and two of their respective international passports are in the custody of the airport immigration services. Our client’s fear now, is that Ashley Coco may use her Nigerian passport and Aurora Imade’s American passport to travel through other Nigerian or West African airports.
We know that the actions of Mr Deji Adeleke and Miss Ashley Coco Adeleke contravene many provisions of the law. One is Section 13 of the Childs Right Law 2007 of Lagos State (as adapted from the Federal Act), which guarantees Aurora Imade Adeleke’s right to parental care and protection. That law also forbids separation of a child from her parents. Another is Section 24 of the same law, which also prohibits abduction of a child from the lawful custody of her parents. Neither Mr Deji Adeleke or Ms Ashley Coco Adeleke has any lawful right to the custody of Aurora Imade Adeleke. Even the unmarried father, Mr David Adedeji Adeleke, only has limited rights to the child and certainly not to the exclusion of our client, the natural mother as the Adeleke’s are trying to do.
We are of the sound view that your Agency is the most viable organisation that can intervene in the plight of our client and save her from the untold trauma that she is going through in the hands of Mr Deji Adeleke and Ashley Coco Adeleke, who has her own child that she keeps with her. We have advised our client about the statutory powers of your Agency to potently investigate and enforce all the provisions of the law that deal with abduction and trafficking in persons.
We urge you to use your good offices to intervene in the case of our client and protect a baby who should still be under her mother’s care from being abducted and smuggled abroad.
We thank you.
Yours faithfully,
- O. AJAYI & CO./Gbolaga Ajayi Esq.
Davido’s manager Kamal however told a reporter of Naij that the baby was taken from the mother because she uses drugs..
Discussion about this post