Sophia Momodu, the mother of David Adeleke’s daughter, has told a Lagos State High Court sitting in Sabo, Yaba, not to grant the child’s custody to the musician.

Momodu told the court on Friday that the applicant was not fit to be granted custody of their daughter because he is always unavailable and does not possess the ability to dutifully care for her.

READ ALSO: Davido Takes Sophia Momodu to Court Over Custody of Daughter, Imade

She stated this in a counter-affidavit she filed in opposition to Davido’s suit seeking custody.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that contrary to Davido’s claim that he had consistently fulfilled his financial obligations towards his daughter, Momodu told the court that the child was almost sent away from school because the artist refused to pay her tuition fees.

According to her, while their relationship lasted, Davido never showed true commitment or love towards their daughter.

“He always used the condition of my making myself available for his sexual pleasures, as a pre-condition to visit our daughter or show some fatherly love to her.

“The applicant, apart from his cravings for sex, only comes around to spend time with our daughter when he wants to use our daughter for his media stunts or promotions.

“The applicant has always been known to go away and stop communicating with our daughter, to stop making payments for school fees and/or maintenance for our daughter, whenever I refused his sexual advances,” she stated.

The respondent stated that Davido once threw her and their daughter out of his home in Atlanta, US, during a summer holiday in 2017 and they ended up squatting with a friend.

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Momodu stated that she never denied Davido access to his daughter and that it was he, who chose to be “an absentee father.”

She added that she had been responsible for her accommodation and that the artiste had always had access to their daughter until he chose to abuse it by visiting at odd hours to demand sex.

“When I noticed that the intention of the applicant for coming late at night to my house was not to visit our daughter, but to seek sexual favours, even after our relationship had ended, I told him to desist from such late-night visits, as our daughter who needed to be in school in the morning would have slept at the time of his late-night visits.

“It was when I refused the applicant’s ingress into my house at ungodly hours of the night on the pretext of visiting our daughter that he decided to stop visiting or calling our daughter and this has been the pattern with the applicant all through his relationship with our daughter.

“Whenever I refused to be his sex slave, he would stop caring for his daughter and abandon her and use the fact of our daughter’s sadness due to his absence to force me to accede to his unwholesome demands.

“I have never stopped the applicant or his family members from coming to visit his daughter, calling or reconnecting with our daughter,” she stated.

The respondent again stated that contrary to Davido’s claim, he has not been faithful in paying their daughter’s school fees, having defaulted in 2021 and 2022, with the school writing to her in January 2023, over unpaid tuition.

“The school wrote via email notifying me that our daughter will not be allowed entry into the school, except all outstanding fees from 2021 to 2023, were paid off,” she said.

Momodu told the court that it was Davido’s father who intervened and paid the school fees.

She stated that contrary to Davido’s claim, she has been the one paying the rent of the apartment where she lives with her daughter, adding that Davido did not buy any house for them.

Momodu said she has been providing the best care for her daughter, in spite of her father’s negligence and will continue to do so, as a loving mother.

The respondent was represented at Friday’s proceedings before Justice A. J. Bashua, by a legal team led by Chief (Dr) Anthony Idigbe (SAN) of Punuka Attorneys & Solicitors.

Chief Idigbe drew attention to the publication of a hearing notice in a national newspaper by Davido’s legal team, in which the name of his daughter was mentioned four times.
The judge agreed with Chief Idigbe that while the press was free to report, the child’s name ought not to be mentioned at all.

The judge then asked members of the press, litigants and all other counsel not involved in the case, to leave the courtroom during the hearing.

Before they left, Chief Idigbe, with the court’s permission, drew the attention of members of the press to Section 143 of the Child’s Rights Law of Lagos State 2015.

It provides that in a case involving a minor, “No person must be allowed to attend court, other than the members and officers of the court and the parties to the case.

It also provides that their solicitors and counsel, parents and guardians of the child and other persons directly concerned in the case were free to be allowed in.”

Chief Idigbe also referred to Section 144 of the law, which prohibits the publication of a child’s name.

The section reads: “No person must publish the name, address, school, photograph, or anything likely to lead to the identification of a child in a matter before the court, except as required by the provisions of this law.”

The SAN further referred to Section 145 of the Child Rights Law, which provides: “The proceedings in the court must be conducive to the best interest of the child and must be conducted in an atmosphere of understanding, allowing the child to express himself and participate in the proceedings.”

Momodu, in the counter-affidavit, also faulted the publication of the suit in a national newspaper.

“The applicant (Davido) publishing this suit in a national newspaper has exposed our daughter to great danger.

“I would have to implement extra security measures to ensure the continued safety of our daughter in school,” she stated.

At the end of the proceedings, it was learned that the court referred the case for possible settlement by the Alternative Dispute Resolution section of the court during Settlement Week.

Ghanaian chef Ebenezer Smith, also known as Chef Smith, has been exposed for fraudulently claiming to have set a new Guinness World Record for the longest cooking marathon by an individual.

Smith had announced on social media that he had set a new record of 802 hours and 25 minutes. This surpasses the previous mark by a great amount of time. However, Alina Polianskaya, a PR executive for Guinness World Records, has firmly refuted these claims.

“It is not true that Ebenezer Smith has been awarded a Guinness World Record certificate,” Polianskaya told BBC. “The current and true record holder for the longest cooking marathon by an individual is Alan Fisher from Ireland. He achieved 119 hours, 57 minutes, and 16 seconds in Matsue, Japan, from September 28 to October 3, 2023.”

Unfortunately, this revelation comes as a blow to Smith. He has proudly displayed a fake Guinness World Record certificate on his social media channels. Deceiving his followers into believing he had achieved the prestigious accomplishment.

The previous record holders
Also, the record holder before Alan Fisher was Hilda Baci, a Nigerian chef who set the world record in 2022 with a marathon of 100 hours. Hilda Baci’s achievement inspired millions of Nigerians. Several of them have come out to attempt to break different types of Guinness World Records. This wave is popularly tagged as the “Hilda Baci effect.”

Guinness World Records has made it clear that it does not recognize Smith’s claimed record. The organisation has taken steps to address the unauthorized use of its brand and the dissemination of false information.

Furthermore, this isn’t Ebenezer Smith’s first attempt at breaking the longest cooking marathon record. He sent his first application in June and November 2023 to which he was denied. Chef Smith claimed to have received approval from the Guinness World Records in January 2024 after which he and his team began preparing for the cook-a-thon.

Chef Smith’s arrest
Following the press conference held by Chef Smith, the police arrested him and his manager. Their arrest is due to a breach of contract between the chef and main sponsor of the cookathon, Amadia Shopping Center.

One of the company’s representatives stormed the venue of the press conference to understand why the chef did not inform them of the email that he went to another venue to make the public announcement.

Chef Smith’s lawyer, Kofi Awoonor, spoke on this situation at a local TV station (TV3). He said the arrest is “in connection with some disagreement with Chef Smith’s lead sponsor for the cookathon.”

“I got a call that my client has been arrested, so I came here. But the officers said the commander is not around where the investigators are also not in the office at the time – but they will brief me on Wednesday about the full details.”

Chef Smith’s former team member, Naa Adjeley, said; “The company has pumped over GH¢ 300k for the cookathon – for equipment, foodstuff and things used for the attempt, so they are upset that the chef did not tell them anything before he went to do the press conference.”

She also added that the chef has a new manager and team who have been running things. Apparently, they sidelined all the people who were part of the team during the cookathon attempt.

“Before I left the police station Tuesday night, it was the chef and his manager who were there answering questions.”

Finally, as Chef Ebenezer Smith is facing charges with Amadia Shopping Center, people are calling upon Guinness World Records to make a public statement to confirm if Chef Smith is indeed the official record holder.

The Guardian

Sweden launched a new law on Monday that allows grandparents to step in and get paid parental leave while taking care of their grandchildren for up to three months of a child’s first year.

The development comes after the Swedish parliament, the 349-seat Riksdag, approved last December the government’s proposal on the transfer of parental allowance.

This comes 50 years after the Scandinavian country became the first in the world to introduce paid parental leave for fathers and not just mothers.

Under the law, parents can transfer some of their generous parental leave allowance to the child’s grandparents.

A parent couple can transfer a maximum of 45 days to others, while a single parent can transfer 90 days, according to the Social Insurance Agency, a government agency that administers the social insurance system.

This Scandinavian country of 10 million, known for its taxpayer-funded social welfare system, has over generations built a society where citizens are taken care of from cradle to grave.

In Sweden, you are entitled to be fully off work when your child is born. Parental benefit is paid out for 480 days, or about 16 months, per child.

Of those, the compensation for 390 days is calculated based on a person’s full income, while for the remaining 90 days, people get a fixed amount of 180 kronor ($17) per day.

There are also other benefits for parents in Sweden — they can also work reduced hours until the child is 8 years old, while government employees can get those reduced hours until the child turns 12.

By contrast, the United States is one of only a handful of countries — and the only industrialized one — that does not have a national paid maternity leave policy. The Family and Medical Leave Act provides eligible American workers with up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave per year, but that time is unpaid.

“We have no federal, national-level entitlement to paid parental leave at all,” said Vicki Shabo, who researches and advocates for paid family and medical leave programs in the United States at Washington, D.C.-based think tank New America.

Paid family leave programs have been created in 13 states and Washington, D.C., although the parental leave offered in those places is generally about three months — just a fraction of Sweden’s benefits. As of March of last year, only about a quarter of civilian workers in the U.S. got paid family leave, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Even in states that offer paid leave to bond with a new child, that time is not transferable to grandparents unless they are acting as the child’s parent, said Jared Make, vice president at nonprofit advocacy organization A Better Balance.

“Families often extend beyond the nuclear family,” Make said. “Examples like Sweden show just how far behind the United States is. We have a lot of work to do to catch up with the rest of the industrialised world.”

Alexandra Wallin of Sweden’s Social Insurance Agency told Swedish broadcaster SVT the new law will “give greater opportunities.”

Still, the rules for grandparents, she said, are the same as for ordinary parental allowance and require a person be insured for parental allowance, which most people in Sweden are.

There are conditions for parental allowance — a retiree can also take parental leave, for example, in which case the compensation is based on the person’s pension. A person may not look for work or study during the time they receive parental allowance.

In the central town of Avesta, about 140 kilometers (87 miles) northwest of Stockholm, Ritva Kärkkäinen told SVT she is considering taking time off work to care for her grandchildren.

In 1974, Sweden replaced gender-specific maternity leave with parental leave for both parents. At the time, the so-called parental insurance enabled parents to take six months off work per child — with each parent entitled to half of the days.

However, after that move, only 0.5% of the paid parental leave was taken by fathers, according to the Social Insurance Agency. Today, fathers in Sweden take around 30% of the paid parental leave, the agency said.

Associated Press writers David Keyton in Berlin and Claire Savage in Chicago contributed to this report.

A woman by the name of Mariam, also a 103-year-old woman, has shared her poignant story of love, heartbreak and unwavering patience, revealing how she waited her whole life for a man who never returned.

Mariam, a virgin, recounted her deep feelings for John, a young European adventurer she met in her youth. John, who travelled to Tanzania seeking adventure, formed a close bond with Mariam, who helped him acclimatise to his new environment. Their friendship blossomed into a profound love.

“I met John, a young white man from Europe who came to Tanzania in search of adventure and purpose. I helped him navigate and settle into his new environment. Over time, our friendship blossomed into something more. He was unlike anyone I had ever met. His manners, stories, and kindness fascinated me. He respected my culture and showed genuine interest in my life and aspirations,” Mariam recalled.

Their relationship deepened, and Mariam fell deeply in love with John, who appeared to reciprocate her feelings. They shared dreams and hopes for a future together. However, John’s sudden and unexplained departure shattered Mariam’s dreams.

“One day, John received an urgent summons to return to his hometown. He left without saying goodbye, and I was devastated. I searched for him for years, holding onto hope that he would return,” she said.

Despite the passage of time, Mariam remained committed to her cultural values, maintaining her virginity in anticipation of marriage with John. Her belief in preserving her purity until marriage was deeply ingrained in her culture.

“I remained a virgin, as it was expected in our culture to preserve purity until marriage. Even though I loved John deeply and we had an incredible bond, I remained steadfast in upholding this cultural value,” Mariam explained.

As years went by, the hope of John’s return faded, leaving Mariam feeling both betrayed and alone. Yet, she remained resolute in her promise to herself and her cultural beliefs.

“I refused to accept that he might not come back. Despite the wonderful moments we shared, I clung to the belief that John would eventually return,” she added.

READ MORE FROM THE GUARDIAN

The Toronto Zoo has become a hot topic on social media after a TikTok video showcasing their gorillas and their Nigerian-inspired names went viral.

The video, posted by user @iam_mattesh, features the gorillas and nameplates identifying them as Ngozi, Nneka, and Sadiki. While some users found this amusing, others found it downright uncomfortable.

A follow-up comment by user @arojinle1 offered insights, bringing, a new perspective. He wrote, “The names given to the gorillas were not meant to insult Nigerians or Africans. Zoos often name their animals based on their region of origin. These gorillas are likely Cross River gorillas, native to Nigeria, so the zoo chose names reflecting their heritage.”

User @arojinle1 further clarified writing, “One of the gorillas is named Charles. Does that mean they’re calling every Charles an animal? There’s a reason behind zoo naming practices. The lion at the OOPL Zoom was named Àrẹ́mú because it was donated by former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo Arẹmu. Let’s not get upset over something with good intentions.”

Cultural Appropriation vs. Appreciation?
Furthermore, the naming of the gorillas treads on the fine line between cultural appropriation and appreciation.

While some see the Nigerian names as a respectful nod to the animals’ “heritage,” others fear that it brings back a history of dehumanisation.

The Toronto Zoo has yet to officially comment on the viral video or the ongoing discourse surrounding the gorillas’ names. However, their website does mention a commitment to animal welfare and species preservation efforts, which may align with their naming choices.

Room for Open Conversation
Finally, the whole controversy surrounding the Toronto Zoo’s gorilla names is culturally sensitive. Zoos have a responsibility to not only care for animals but also to educate the public about their origins and conservation needs.

Perhaps including explanations behind the naming choices in exhibits or on their website could help people understand better.