David Adeleke more known world-wide as Davido is fighting the battle of his life to get out of the paternity entanglement in which he has found himself. A young girl of 12 is at the centre of the controversy, claiming that Davido is her father. Davido said five DNA tests have been carried out and he would no longer entertain any drum-beat of the claims by the girl, Anuoluwapo and her mother, Ayotomide Labinjo. The claims are bad music in his ears. He said the results of the DNA returned negative. “After five DNAs…she and her mom better leave me alone and go find her papa.” He said he did not know the lady and Kemi Olulonyo thought it was probably Davido’s cousin, B-Red that was involved because both look alike.

Davido’s father, Dr. Adedeji Adeleke well known for his enormous material endowments, took over the matter from the star musician, saying the blood of his son has been found not flowing in his girl’s veins. And this is coming from the result of DNA tests carried out by multiple hospitals. He made particular reference to one done at Vedic, a hospital run by an Indian.

Dr. Adeleke said the matter was first drawn to his attention in 2014 through a letter to him by a lawyer in Ibadan in which it was claimed that Davido had put a lady, Ayotomide Labinjo, in the family way. The lawyer said Davido abandoned the lady and her child. The letter was from Ayotomide’s mother, that is Anuoluwapo’s grandmother who had interrogated her daughter to confess who put her in the family way. She has two daughters, the other lives in Abuja and she wondered if it is Titi, Ayo and herself who have been responsible for the care of the girl, what about her father?

Dr. Adeleke went on: Immediately I saw this letter, even before calling David, I called this woman and said: ‘Look. I’m not speaking to my son yet, but I’m going to speak to him. But I’ll suggest to you to give me your address in Ibadan. I’ll send my driver to come and know where you live, but I can assure you that if this girl is my granddaughter, you have no problems with me; I’ll welcome her into my family happily’. She was happy. She gave me her address, and I gave the address to my driver.

“And I called her, gave her the information that anytime they were ready, I would send my driver to pick them up from Ibadan. So, on the appointed day, I sent my driver to Ibadan. Very early, my driver brought the mother of the child, the grandmother, and the baby. The three of them came. And because my driver knows Vedic Hospital, they were already there before I came in with David, because I asked David to come here, and his aide, Lati. So, David, I and Lati met them at Vedic Hospital. We were upstairs where the samples were taken.

“So, we were all in the same room, and he (the doctor) told us the procedure. It was not blood. I’ve read on social media that they were drawing blood. It’s not. It was not done by blood. It was from saliva in their mouth. And he told us that these samples would be sent to South Africa for analysis. The grandmother of the baby and I signed that both of us would be the ones to receive the result.”

Now the outcome: “When the result came, there was 0.00 possibility that Davido was the girl’s father.” Another test and this time involving B-Red was carried out, which made the tests to total five in all. “The test also turned negative.”

Dr. Adeleke said despite the negative results he had been responsible for the university education of Ayotomide, the girl’s mother and the primary school education of the girl, Anuoluwapo. She completed her primary school education but Ayotomide stopped her university education after two sessions. He said he is a grandfather of 14 children and wondered why, given his immense financial muscle and philanthropic disposition, would he hesitate to have one more grandchild.

Ayo Labinjo, using her daughter’s Instagram handle said she and Davido met at GQClub at Ibadan where she was a waitress, and accused Davido of abandoning her because he thought she was a call girl, a girl of low virtue. “I realised this story has now gone global again and we have largely moved on. David Adeleke has largely ignored me for years because he thought he picked a prostitute from GQClub in Ibadan. I was a waitress and not picked up on the streets. I come from a good home. My late father was a good man who worked more for the betterment of Nigeria before he was poisoned. My daughter is a very tech savvy, intelligent achiever.”

Davido’s claim of DNA tests, Ayotomi said: “Dr. Deji Adeleke took us to a lab, not a hospital where Anu’s blood was drawn in 2014 and discarded behind our back and a fake result was printed.” Indeed, the Lab technician masked as ‘Dr. Alex’ who was identified as a brother to Actress Sotayo Gaga who confessed in an epistle that he never did a test for Anu and discarded the blood drawn from her.

“We wasted our time, disrupted Anu’s mental health; then they lied that we did two tests, now five and then he’s never met me. I’m not fighting for my daughter. My daughter is fighting for her identity. David is a U.S. citizen. I will request the U.S. State Department to contact the Embassy in Lagos or Abuja to help us supervise and witness an independent DNA test. I will not say much for now. The language used was awful. My daughter did not beg to be here. Saying you’ve never met me or telling your family that I was a prostitute is wrong. Bullying my daughter is wrong.”

She added movingly: “I am very protective of my daughter’s mental health after the level of bullying she went through for years. My daughter cried for days, fainted in school and went through psychotherapy.”

Dr. Adedeji Adeleke exhibited a graceful disposition from the very beginning when the matter was brought to his attention by calling the mother of Ayo upon receiving the lawyer’s letter. He arranged for a DNA test, the in-thing these days of mounting paternity denial. His fatherly step to support and sponsor the education of both Anu and her daughter is laudable. It is in line with the culture of the Yoruba people.

In the South-West culture you do not throw away a child. A youth can deny paternity a thousand times; what the mother but particularly the grandmother of the young man does is to go behind him to claim the baby as theirs, and celebrate. Throw away a baby, it is not done. Where Dr. Adeleke fell a little short was to permit the conflict to be so widely externalised. He should call the lady, Ayotomi and persuade her to go back to school. The 12-year-old girl should be told to get ready to go to secondary school, preferably outside the shores of our land so she can overcome her psychological trauma.

We learn in higher knowledge spreading on earth today, the adoption of a child could even be more glorious and blessed than a couple not biologically having a child of their own. In this case, it is a paternity dispute that the Yoruba do not encourage.

Where is my erstwhile boss, Sad Sam? There was this similar case in 1971—by a couple at Surulere in Lagos. The lady said her husband was not the father of her child. The man vigorously laid claim to the paternity. The matter went to court where it was a fierce battle. In response to the unrelenting claim by the man, Oga Sad Sam intervened, firing a salvo to him: “Who told you? Who told you that you are the father? Only the woman knows the true father of her child.” It was not an age of DNA which in Lagos in 1980 but more enhanced and formal in 2017. The first paternity testing service powered by what is called “next-generation sequencing technology” was launched by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu in November 2024! It was founded by Dr. Paul Faduola.