EMMANUEL ONYECHE

A Catholic priest in Lagos impregnates a lady and arranges to have the baby adopted secretly in Ijebu-Ode. EMMANUEL ONYECHE examines the circumstances of the affair and how a monsignor's role has put the Catholic Church on the spot


EKENE Chukwudozie, a former Catholic, alleges the existence of a racket in the Catholic Church whereby priests sworn to the oath of celibacy engage in intimacy romps and arrange to have the resultant babies secretly aborted or adopted.

He has reason to. Sometime in 2003, Rev. Fr. Julius Ambrose, the parish priest of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Orile-Iganmu, Lagos, broke his oath of celibacy and allegedly impregnated Juliana Okeke (real name withheld) - the daughter of a man whose family worshipped in the parish and regarded him as a friend.

Ckukwudozie, in a petition he wrote to the National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons and other related Matters, said Okeke, now his wife, discovered she was pregnant shortly before she went to Gombe State for her National Youth Service. When Ambrose was told, Chukwudozie said Ambrose allegedly took Okeke to a clinic in Abuja on three occasions to abort the baby.

He said Okeke refused because she had been brought up to see abortion as a grievous sin in the sight of God. He said Okeke eventually had the baby, a boy, whom she named MacDonald Chidi, on Jan. 7, 2004.

Unable to take the baby to her home, where it is taboo to have a child out of wedlock, and having been rejected by two orphanages, which insisted on written approvals from both parents, Chukwudozie said Okeke confided in her elder sister, Uchenna, who informed Ambrose of the situation.

Ambrose acted fast. He gave Uchenna a telephone number to give to Okeke and instructed Okeke to take the baby to any place the man she calls tells her to.

Okeke called the number and was directed to bring her baby to St. Sebastian Catholic Church, Odo-Egbo, Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State. Chukwudozie said she was instructed to wait on arrival at the entrance of the church's sacristy for a certain 'John,' who would take the baby from her and help her. She must be seated, she was instructed, until someone comes to her.

At the sacristy, a John never appeared. But Monsignor Sylvester Adekoya, a catholic priest of over 30 years did. Chukwudozie said Adekoya listened to her and immediately took her to a member of his parish - Dr. Mrs Elizabeth Ogunsanya - a lecturer in Guidance and Counselling in the Faculty of Education at the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, who was, at the time Adekoya and Okeke met her, in a prayer session with a certain Mrs. O.B. Adebanjo with whom she runs a joint private school.
After eight hours of counselling, Chukwudozie said an unsettled and slightly fearful Okeke was made to write an undertaking in which she gave up her baby for adoption."This baby, I give up for adoption as an act of charity, forgetting that I am no longer the mother, but I will know the couple keeping the baby and will be keeping in touch without identification to the baby as the mother," Okeke wrote.

That day, the baby was handed over to the childless family of Mr. Gabriel and Mrs. Adejoke Ogunbiyi, the husband, Gabriel, being the younger brother of Ogunsanya.

Okeke said she left her full residential address, her Nnamdi Azikiwe University identity card and the original birth certificate of the child showing that he was born at Miyetti Hospital in Gombe State. She said at intervals, she visited Ijebu-Ode to see the baby.

By mid-2004, at the same period Okeke now met and married Chukwudozie, the Ogunbiyis were at the Adoption (Juvenile Court) in Ijebu-Ode processing the formal adoption of MacDonald. On Sept. 15, 2005, the court, presided over by O.O. Odubanjo, a senior magistrate Grade I, ruled and gave out MacDonald to the Ogunbiyis for adoption.

On Nov. 9, 2004, 11 months before the Sept. 15, 2005 ruling, the Ogunbiyis had rechristened the baby, giving him the name Peter Omotunmiwa Ogunbiyi and obtained for the boy, a National Population Commission birth certificate with number 457876 that had Idona-Atan in Ijebu North East Local Government Area of Ogun State as its registration centre.

Chukwudozie, infuriated and now in tandem with his wife in the fight to reclaim MacDonald, said the entire process, which led to the boy being given out in adoption, was flawed.

He said the court was deliberately misled by Adekoya, Ogunsanya and the Ogunbiyis as a result of which, he said, the court took a wrong decision.

"The entire process of the adoption leading to the Sept. 15, 2005 ruling took place without my knowledge or that of my wife though Monsignor Adekoya, Mrs. Ogunsanya and the Ogunbiyis had the full contacts of my wife as contained in the letter of undertaking she was made to write," he said.

Chukwudodie stated that on Feb. 21, 2005, nearly seven months before the Sept. 15, 2005 ruling, he and his wife visited Adekoya and that on that occasion, his wife made it clear that she wanted her baby back.

"If the monsignor is an honest man of God who truly fears God, why did he not initiate the process of withdrawing the case from the court and give the child back to my wife, who had recovered from her initial fear and confusion. At that point, it was not too late for him to take such action," he said.

Chuwudozie said Adekoya told them after they had made the demand that his wife agreeing to give them the boy was the only help they could render to her at that period of her trauma.

Among the documents presented to the court with which the court partly based its decision were: The declaration of age of the adopter (Mrs. Ogunbiyi); medical certificate of fitness of the adopter; marriage certificate of adopter; letter of consent from adopter's husband (Mr. Ogunbiyi); birth certificate of the subject (MacDonald) and the medical certificate of fitness of the subject.

Chukwudozie wondered why there was no letter of consent from his wife - the biological mother of the subject - which he said was the bedrock of any genuine, transparent and successful adoption.

In Chapter 13 of the statement in support of an Adoption order which the Ogunbiyis filled, they requested the court to dispense with the consent of the mother on the ground that she had abandoned the baby.

Chukwudozie says he suspects that the undertaking that his wife was made to write in her period of trauma was not presented to the court as consent of the biological mother because it contained his wife's contacts and would therefore puncture the claim in the application that she had abandoned the child or jeopardise what he called "the wilful fraud to perfect the adoption without the knowledge of myself and my wife."

Chukwudozie says it was for this same reason that the original birth certificate of the boy was not included among the documents presented to the court because it would raise questions of how an abandoned baby came about a birth certificate.

Realising that a claim of abandonment without evidence that the matter was reported to the police would crumble before the court, Chukwudozie said Adekoya wrote one, on May 4, 2005 - 15 months after Okeke brought MacDonald to him at St. Sebastian - and addressed it to the Divisional Police Officer of Igbeba Police Station in Ijebu-Ode.

On May 5, 2005, a day after Adekoya's letter, it was tendered in court by the Probation Officer in the welfare office at Ijebu-Ode, Mr. Sunday Adekoya. The letter was admitted and marked exhibit 'B.'

"I wish to report that we have the report from Rev. Father Adekoya of St. Sebastian Catholic Church, Ijebu-Ode about the abandonment of the subject. This is a case of adoption of MacDonald Chidi aged one year and four months, who was abandoned at St. Sebastian Catholic Church, Ijebu-Ode on Jan. 17, 2004 by his biological mother," the probation officer informed the court. Ogunsanya was listed among those present in court that day.

According to the adoption law of Ogun State 1983, the documents presented to the court by the Ogunbiyis appear to be in order. But Section 3, which deals with the kind of juveniles that the law is applicable to, gives an insight into why an abandonment story must be sold to and bought by the court before an adoption order can be granted.

The section reads, "This law applies only to the adoption of a person under the age of 17years, who is abandoned, or whose parents and other relatives are unknown or cannot be traced after due enquiry certified by a juvenile court…"

Chukwudozie said Adekoya's letter is fictitious and fraudulent and was never seen at Igbeba Police Station. But speaking to our correspondent in Ijebu-Ode, Adekoya said, "If it was forged, why would the police not complain that the letter is not true? The police didn't report. I gave the letter and they acknowledged it. There is no way that you would say it is false. If it is, the police should complain."

At Igbeba Police Station on Jan. 14, 2010 where our correspondent took the letter to establish the truth, the DPO was said not to be available. A copy of the letter was however left with a policeman named Mr. Adeyemi Olasupo for verification. He gave out a number with which he said he could be reached the next day after he had verified the authenticity of the letter. At 1.07pm the next day, Olasupo said, "No such letter was received here."

Chukwudozie alleges that Monsignor Adekoya and Ambrose engage in a joint venture 'clearing and forwarding' of babies and their vulnerable mothers and that they use the Sacristy of St. Sebastian's Catholic Cathedral as transit point and the house of Ogunsanya and Adebanjo as the terminal.He alleges that Adekoya told him that he (Adekoya) used to go from Ijebu-Ode to Nekede in Imo State 'interchanging' babies. Adekoya refutes this allegation and says, "He just wants to take advantage of a comment I made for which I am not sorry. I told him that we want to allow children to survive and we want childless couples to be happy by adoption.

"For instance, in our cathedral here, we have such cases where we have arranged such. We went to Nekede, through normal process and adopted some children. Husband and wife are happy till today. That is an example where there is no legal tussle because we followed the normal process. He just took advantage of that comment. There is no proof that I am trafficking."

On why he appeared in a hurry to give out the child for adoption instead of keeping him temporarily till he reconciled Okeke and her parents using his office as a monsignor, Adekoya said, "She told me in confidence who got her pregnant and that is her parish priest and a friend of her family and that if the family should know that the priest did that, it would be crazy.

"I wanted to protect that so that we can save the situation. Let this child be alive and let the position of the priest be at least kept till she can sort herself out and to let her own family, including her mother who is in the hospital be helped once this child is adopted which is her will so that everybody will be happy - the child is alive, she is okay, she can marry well, her parents will not be aware, that is why I said it is okay since she has offered to give this child out for adoption and that she can come back to visit, but not as the mother. It is on that ground that I said let me do my pastoral work and I did. I was not in any hurry at all."

Adekoya admitted that Chukwudozie and his wife came to him asking that the baby be returned to them before the court judgement, but said, "With the letter of consent that she gave and all the situations she mentioned, I had to allow the process judicially to continue. Immediately after her note and I said this is what she has said, that is all. I just opted out of it. How they continued now to get all these papers was out of me. I was not part of it. I said my pastoral work stops here. Then the family continued till they got the judgement. I finished my own job and I opted out at that point."

On the forged birth certificate of the child, Adekoya said, "To start with, I did not even christen the child. It was after the adoption and the parents, under adoption, decided to have the child registered in the LGA they belong to and that is why they did that on their own. The adoptees actually told me so. They said they did that to rectify things and it was not to my knowledge."

Ogunsanya admitted not counselling Okeke on adoption, but said they told her (Okeke) that though she wanted someone to take care of her baby, the only way she could get such help was her agreeing to let such a person adopt the baby. She said she acted in good faith by insisting that Okeke should have the freedom to visit her baby at any time she wanted. She mentioned that it was Adekoya who informed them that they should follow the process of adoption.

Asked pointedly on whether she did not understand that the process of adoption required more than a letter of undertaking, she said, "That was why I said I was angry with the church because monsignor knew; he is a lawyer who read canon law. He was the one who said we should go through the adoption process. Mine was to provide the lady with emotional stability, which I did for her and I did it in good faith by insisting that she should come back to visit her baby and she came back. When I came back from abroad and met the lady and she told me about the goings-on in the court that she was kept in the dark and I was surprised. I have learnt my lesson."

Albert Fasina, the Catholic Bishop of Ijebu Ode Diocese who arranged several unsuccessful peace meetings on the issue said he was brought into the picture when the matter was already in court. Chukwudozie alleged that Fasina at a point ordered Adekoya to release the baby to him and his wife while Adekoya said no such order was given to him.

Fasina said, "Legally, I am not in a position to order. Pastorally too, I am not in a position to order. The situation surrounding the adoption was already settled before the matter was brought to me. I was not carried along from the beginning. So I looked at it with the hope that we wanted peace.

"We wanted such that they would allow sleeping dogs to lie - allow the child to remain. After some years, they can come back and begin to talk - but there was not a day I ordered that the child be returned. Legally and pastorally, I was not in a position to do that because things had got to the stage where many people had participated.

"There are documents relating to what the lady wrote. By saying do this now, I will offend either the party that had adopted the child, the police and the welfare people or even the man that was coming in to claim the child of his wife and I said legally, it is the court that will say a thing that will make everybody to be satisfied."

At the Office of Cardinal Olubunmi Okogie, a man who identified himself as his secretary said the cardinal was aware of the issue, but had delegated it to Fasina to handle.

Sources at Our Lady in Orile-Iganmu say Ambrose was transferred out of that church several years ago and that he (Ambrose) is currently serving in Kenya.

At the time Chukwudozie wrote to NAPTIP, the matter had not been conclusively adjudicated at court and that NAPTIP told him to have faith in the court. 

SOURCE: http://odili.net/news/source/2010/jan/30/819.html