By Naijapals/Gistmania
Things have fallen apart between two old lovers in Lagos and right now, the centre can no longer hold. At the centre of the furore between Pa Moses Adesanya Agboola, an Ilesa, Osun State-born grandfather, and his lover of 11 years, Madam Funke Omoolugbe Alasiri, who hails from Emure-Ekiti, Ekiti State, is a house in Ojodu area of Lagos. Right now, the two have become archenemies.
Pa Agboola, 66, claims his ex-lover, Funke has taken possession of his only house. He says the woman is threatening to take his life if he ever attempts to reclaim the building. The property, located on Yakoyo-Apode Street/Association Way, Ojodu in Ikeja Local Government Area of Lagos State, was bought about 12 years ago. The documents bear Agboola’s names, but Madam Funke says she actually bought the property.
She tells our reporter that she only permitted Agboola to use his name on the deed of transfer of ownership before their love story turned sour because she trusted him. Looking forlorn and dejected, Agboola explains his side of the story. “The time I met her in 1993, she had left her husband for whom she bore three children. She claimed that she had been defrauded by fraudsters and had lost all she had.
She further explained that she had no one to help as her husband had deserted her and her children. “Then I decided to help her. I was giving her money to take care of herself and her three children. About three days later, our mere benefactor cum helpless woman relationship developed into a romance and I started sleeping with her. But once this started, I couldn’t control myself whenever I was with her.
I discovered that I was always doing her bidding. Whatever she asked me to do, I did. She would ask me to perform oral sex on her and I would succumb. I was just helpless. “The unholy affair grew so deep that I later abandoned my wife and children and rented an apartment in which we were living. And I was taking care of her and her children.
“About five years later, I was with her one day when one of her female friends came to inform her that there was a building that was up for sale in the same neighbourhood where we were living and that coincided with the time I was trying to get a loan from my employers. So, once I got the cheque from my company, I took it to Funke because I trusted her then.
We both went to her bank at Ketu to cash the cheque and make the payment. Once we paid for the house, the seller instantly handed all the papers of the building over to me. And we prepared all the agreement papers and settled everything. The papers of the house all bear my name. I bought the house from Mr. Mukaila Oladele Adams. “But in 2003, we had a serious disagreement and I made up my mind to discontinue the affair . I just didn’t want to have anything to do with her any longer and I made it clear to her. I had several reasons I wanted things that way.
First, I realised that I was not benefiting from the relationship, as she had no child for me. I also discovered that I was neglecting my wife and children, the ones I should be spending my hard-earned money on. She had squandered my money and sold my valuable property, including a landed property. Lastly, I discovered that she was fetish. In fact, she must have bewitched me during those years that I was dating her. I just thank God that I had not married her legally so she could not lay claim to any of my property.
“But once I made these things known to her, she began to play smart. She first reported me to a Divisional Police Officer (DPO), alleging that I wanted to take illegal possession of her building. But when I showed up to the police and explained that I owned the house and that the original papers were in the possession of the bank from which I had secured additional loan to offset the debts incurred on the purchase of the house, the police threw away the case and asked us to settle the matter amicably. “But I do not want to settle the matter amicably. I want to have my house back.
Right now, she is living in the house and collecting the rent and claiming that she owns it. But I don’t want to give her my house. It is the only house I’ve built and my children are asking me about the fruit of my labour . This woman made me to neglect my wife and children throughout the many years I wasted with her. Enough is enough. I want the Inspector General of police and the government to help collect my house from her. I have photocopies of the documents of my house.” Madam Funke Alasiri has a different tale, however. She describes Agboola as a pathological liar in a telephone chat with this reporter. Her words:
“That man is a big liar. He did not own the house and he is only trying to reap from where he did not sow. I am a trained accountant and I had worked in many establishments, including the Lagos State Ministry of Justice, before I went into private business many years ago. I bought the land with my money, through a cheque I issued for the payment of the property via First Bank, Ketu Branch, Lagos. I asked the former owner to put Agboola’s name on the deed of transfer of ownership because I did not know that he would later betray me . “Everyone in our street knows that I own the house and you can come and find out the truth.
I borrowed plenty of money from various sources to build that house and I have all the receipts of the building materials purchased during the construction. I was the one that paid all the workers on site and many of the receipts are in my name. It is because of the fact that I don’t have any child for him that he wanted to drive me out of the house so he can take over. ” Speaking on what eventually led to their separation, Alasiri said Agboola was messing around with other women: “He once impregnated one woman called Omolara and he brought the woman to my house when she had a child for him . The woman then started giving me problems to the extent that she reproached me for being childless. It was then that I asked that she must leave the house because I could no longer stand her despicable attitude.”
Madam Alasiri denies that she ever bewitched Pa Agboola, dismissing the allegation as ridiculous and unfounded. “Please, ask him to tell you the name of the Alfa and where he lives,” she begs the reporter. “When we went to Agege Customary Court where he had filed for a divorce, he mentioned the same thing – that I was always forcing him to perform oral sex on me but he was rebuked by the president of the court for such nasty remarks. I want you as a journalist and an educated man to look at the kind of question you just asked.
So, it means he was performing oral sex on me for the 11 years that we lived as couple? What kind of a life is that? He left me when debtors started disturbing me for their money. He said he never asked me to borrow money from anyone to build the house and that was how he took his belongings and left the house . He had petitioned the office of the Inspector General of Police that I took over his house from him but the IG dismissed his petition because it lacked merit.
His intention is to kill me so that he can take over the house.” Some of the residents in the area admit that the tussle has been on for some time. They suggest an amicable resolution of the matter in the interest of peace. A woman, who identifies herself as Iya Pelumi, informs the reporter: “This issue has been on for long. The controversy over who the real owner of the building is between the ex-lovers started a long time ago and we can’t say much on it, as none of us knows how the land was purchased. I believe it is a serious domestic affair but that does not mean that it cannot be resolved. We used to know them as a couple until the man left the house a few years ago. And that was when the tussle over ownership of the house started.”
A copy of a receipt allegedly issued by the former owner of the property to Mr. Agboola on April 3,1998, and which is in possession of Daily Sun reads in part: “I, Mukaila Olakunle Adams, hereby acknowledge the receipt of N650,000 from Mr. Moses Agboola of Ashland Oil Nigeria Ltd., being the purchase price of my parcel of land and the uncompleted structure thereon, consisting of a three bedroom bungalow situate, lying and being at Yakoyo-Apode Street/Association Way, Ojodu in Ikeja Local Government Area of Lagos State of Nigeria. I accept the said sum of N650, 000 in full and final settlement of all my interest whatsoever in the said property.”
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