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SOLOMON arrived back in the country towards the middle of last year - without the wife and the son he thought he was lucky to have.'
SOLOMON arrived back in the country towards the middle of last year - without the wife and the son he thought he was lucky to have.'I was already 30 years old when I met Claire, my wife-to-be," he told me. 'A friend introduced us. The friend warned she was an ex-girlfriend of another friend, that she'd just broken up with him and it would be nice if both of us could get together.
I was in-between girlfriends and Claire looked like an okay girl, so we got together and within months, she said she was pregnant. She knew how much I wanted to settle down and with a baby already on the way, I was sure God was on my side.
'But I was skeptical. Wasn't it too soon for her to get pregnant after just finishing with her ex? I might be desperate to be a father but I wasn't prepared to take on another man's child. She assured me that the pregnancy was mine and that she was ready to do a DNA test to ascertain that after she had the child. That was good enough for me.
'We had a good wedding and had our son a few months after. DNA tests later proved I was the father. I was the happiest man on earth. I spoilt our son rotten, bought him the best toys, brand-name clothes and funky shoes. Nothing was too much for my son and all the nest-eggs I'd amassed over the years went on my new home. Every time I came home, I'd rush to him and play with him.
'In time, I convinced Claire we should be thinking of coming back to Nigeria and she was enthusiastic about the idea. We gave ourselves four years within which to work as dogs to bring back enough capital to set up a business. As the savings piled, we bought house-hold things, including a top-of-the-range computer. Nat, our son, was three when Claire changed. At first she seemed quiet, then she wouldn't let me make love to her except I pleaded.
She started snapping at me over little things and it got to a point where I would have beaten her up but for not wanting to get into trouble with the police. Then one day, I got back to find the place quiet. Usually, the telly would be on and Nat would be making a noise around the house. This time, everything was silent. I walked into the living room and stopped. The TV and video were missing.
I went into the kitchen. The microwave, tumble dryer and washing machine had gone too. Had we been robbed? I ran upstairs to check our wardrobe. My side was untouched but Claire's side was empty. In my son's room, I almost collapsed. All his things had disappeared. It was then it dawned on me that Claire had left me.
'I picked up the phone and called the friend who introduced us. This was after I couldn't get through to my wife's mobile. He didn't sound surprised. He said he was on his way. It was him who let me know that Claire had been seeing her ex behind my back and could have gone back to him.
But what about my son? He advised me to get the services of a solicitor, which I did. Then my nightmare really started.
'After letters between her solicitor and mine, I was advised to visit my solicitor's office. He told me he'd been faxed a document stating I wasn't Nat's father! When I mentioned the DNA, he said my wife had confessed to faking the DNA document she showed to me. Was it possible? She'd already stabbed me in the chest, was she going to continue to twist the knife?
'With pity in his eyes, my solicitor said Claire had explained how the deception was carried out. When she first got the results of the DNA test, they had stated categorically that I was not Nat's father. She had then photocopied the report, placing plain pieces of paper over the text so that, except for logo and address of the testing centre, she was left with a blank document.
She had then typed in the wording from the original document, changing certain sentences such as 'is not the father" to 'is the father." She had then photocopied the whole letter again and showed it to me as ‘proof' that I was the father. The document looked like a copy of the real thing - logos, address, everything ....
'Even when my solicitor insisted on a new DNA, I wasn't too keen. I knew now that Claire could easily falsify documents. She'd done the same thing when her married brother in America wanted to re-marry and the authorities wanted proof of his divorce.
Claire had sent for and gotten a photocopy of the divorce certificate of a friend in Nigeria and doctored it the same way she did the DNA documents. She'd then sent the photocopy of the divorce certificate. with the certificate now bearing his brother's names to him. He'd since gotten married bigamously to a black American and has a green card to show for it!
'When the results of the second DNA came, it didn't take me by surprise. It showed Nat wan't mine. My supposed wife had let me care for a son who wasn't mine, then ripped him away after I'd grown to love him, Of course I still have paternal feelings for that poor child, that is why I had to leave so as to erase his memory. It's not the poor boy's fault after all.
'That experience not only took a huge chunk of my money, it's made me a very cynical man. When a man hurts a woman, his name is usually mud. But a woman really hurts you, the knife goes way in, with her still holding on to its handle..."