Veteran Yoruba actor Abdul Salam “Tioruju Mondusi” Taofeek has revealed how he discovered that two of the five children he raised were not his.
Speaking in a viral clip from his interview on the African A-List podcast, the actor said the incident involved his late wife, whose name he withheld.
He described it as the most painful experience of his life, explaining that his late wife admitted in court that another man, named Kehinde, fathered two of the children.
Taofeek said, “I went to answer the court summons and was told she was filing for divorce. I agreed to it. That was when I found out that out of the five children, only three were mine and two were not. I asked her to specify which ones were mine.
“She said the first, Ibrahim, was mine; the second, Habeeb, was mine; the third was not mine, yet I was the one who named all of them. She said the fourth was mine and the fifth was not. The case proceeded, and the other man was called to court.”
Pain
The actor added that his late wife confessed to a legal battle stemming from her affair with Kehinde.
He stated that his late wife hurt him more deeply than anyone else in his lifetime.
“It pains me that she is now dead. She died last year. She never ended up marrying that man. She died without having married him, because he was already married with four children. I requested a DNA test for all five children and asked that he present it in court.
“The court ruled that if he could not comply, the children would remain mine. I eventually left her with all five children, as I had my own children. The children are now with me, except for the two, though they do come and go,” said Taofeek.
Genesis
He added that he first suspected something was wrong when he returned home from work to find his late wife absent.
According to him, his favourite child told him she left home three days earlier while nine months pregnant, and he was unable to reach her for days.
“I called her phone, but it was not going through. The following day, I called again, and she said that wherever she was, no one should look for her. I asked, ‘Including me, your husband?’ At that time, she had four sons for me and was carrying the fifth pregnancy. She gave birth without informing me, so I cursed and abused her. I went to her mother’s place to report her, but when I got there, I saw her picture with another man hanging in the sitting room.
“Her mother took it down when she saw me enter. I confronted her and cursed her after seeing the picture. My wife came home, and we fought, and she told me I was not the father of the pregnancy. It became a serious fight. On the third day, she called to tell me she had given birth and that I should come for the child,” he noted.
Arrest
This, the actor said, led him to have both her and Kehinde arrested.
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“When we got to the station, she was questioned. She said I was her husband, and that the other man, Kehinde, was the baby’s father. They asked her who owned which child. She said the older children were mine, and that the new baby belonged to Kehinde. They also asked whether all her previous pregnancies had been carried out in my house, and she said yes.
“The man was arrested. The next day, I went to the police station, where Kehinde begged me to let the matter go. He said he would stay away from my wife and children and that his own wife must not find out. I told him I would not accept the new baby as mine.”
The actor is known for films such as “Ode Aperin”, “Digboluja”, “Anjonu Metta”, “Ikoko Alagbara”, “Olori Eje”, “Sukute”, among others.
