It is certainly not the best of times for the founder of Divine Prophetic Solutions Prayers Ministry, Prophet Theophilus Obayan, over the lose of his three kids to his estranged wife’s new husband in Ondo State owing to his inability to pay bride price in line with the Igbo culture and tradition.
P.M.EXPRESS gathered that Prophet Obayan got married to his embattled wife, Prophetess Chibuzor Lilian and they had three children before the wife dumped him and got married to one of their church members, Abua Obi.
Trouble however, started after Prophetess Lilian got married to Abua Obi and changed her children’s surname to her new husband’s name and the former husband, Prophet Obayan, protested but he was told that the children do not belong to him because he did not pay Lilian’s dowry in line with Igbo culture and tradition.
Following the development, Prophet Obayan, who is of the Yoruba ethnic nationality, went to the Akure Magistrate Court and filed a suit for the dissolution of their 23-year old marriage between him and Prophetess Lilian, an Igbo woman from Abia State.
The Court, in its ruling, condemned the Igbo custom which denied a father access to his children over non-payment of bride price.
The Presiding Magistrate, Mr. Segun Stephen Rotiba, in his ruling, described the Igbo tradition as barbaric, evil and ungodly for punishing one person when two consenting adults are involved in the act.
The Magistrate, Rotiba, granted Prophet Obayan’s prayer by dissolving the marriage and equally his wish to reclaim his four children.
The Jjudge said:
“In the same breathe, I find the Igbo custom exuded by the respondent and her witnesses that the children of the union can bear Mr. Abua Obi as their surname, atavistic, barbaric, evil, ungodly, irrational, unsensational, crass, gross, crude, unwary, provocative, ungodly, discriminatory and insensible”.
He added: “I condemn this custom in the strongest terms”.
The founder of Divine Prophetic Solutions Prayers Ministry, Prophet Obayan, was said to have secretly conducted DNA tests on his 3 children.
He revealed how he had lived with a painful secret for the past eight years.
Obayan claimed that none of his three children belonged to him as he discovered the truth after secretly conducting DNA tests. He recounted that he was involved in a car accident, which left him unable to have children.