Despite a court order awarding custody of their two children to his ex-wife Unmi Fatimah Bolori, son of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Aminu Abubakar, has reportedly absconded with one of the children.
The plaintiff’s lawyer, Nwabuzor-Ethel Okoh, made this known yesterday.
Chief Magistrate Kikelomo Ayeye of a Tinubu Magistrates’ Court, Lagos, had on Wednesday granted custody of the duo’s two children to Bolori after her estranged husband failed to file a response to her application for child custody.
The couple, who went their separate ways in 2011, have been at loggerheads over who should have custody of the children, now aged nine and seven years.
On October 11, 2017, Magistrate Ayeye had ordered the respondent to produce the seven-year-old boy in court but cited him for contempt of court and ordered him remanded in transit prison after he failed to produce the boy at the next court hearing on October 18, 2017.
The respondent was however released after producing the boy.
However at the resumed hearing on January 10, 2018, the court had resolved the custody battle in favour of Bolori.
Bolori had sought an order for Aminu to pay her N300,000 monthly as feeding and maintenance allowance for the children’s upkeep and N1 million yearly as their clothing allowance.
Bolori also sought an order restraining Aminu from taking the kids “outside the shores of Nigeria for any purpose whatsoever” without her consent.
However, the magistrate held that, “The respondent failed to file a response. In view of the deliberate absence of the respondent and his legal team, I am constrained to make these following orders in default of respondent’s presence and in the best interest of the children to wit:
“Unmi Fatima Bolori is hereby granted full custody of the children aged seven and nine. The applicant is allowed to reside with the children at her residence at Katampe Extension, Abuja.
“The applicant is ordered to put the children in schools suited for their educational needs in Abuja. Access is granted to the respondent to visit his children in Abuja and request for the children to spend holidays with him.
“The respondent is ordered to pay monthly upkeep for the children in the amount ofN250,000 monthly, beginning from January 2018. The respondent is ordered to effect medical insurance on each of the children.”
However, despite yesterday’s ruling, Bolori’s counsel, Nwabuzor-Ethel Okoh said Aminu Abubakar had absconded with the seven-year-old son.
“The boy is not with us. He snatched the boy from the mother and spirited him away today (yesterday), even after the final ruling on custody earlier made by the court. We are now trying to get across to him and the boy.
“He snatched the boy from his mother and drove off. We never suspected anything like this was going to happen, otherwise I would have told the boy’s mom to drive away with her kids,” the counsel said.