MARRIED IN ABSENTIA, DIVORCED IN SECRET: Widow receives divorce summons 5 years after husband’s death

Sometime in 2016, Mrs Olabisi Quadri, businesswoman, Managing Director of Labog Nigeria Limited and former staffer of the Nigerian Television Authority, lost her husband.

After a series of events marking the burial, one of which held around Yaba, Lagos, the widow has struggled to move on with her life, immersing herself in her business, her children, family, community service and church activities,  especially in her Ikoyi Baptist Church and the Rotary Club.

However, due to health and other personal reasons, she has had to temporarily relocate outside the shores of the country.

Although she has since made full recovery, Mrs Quadri opted to stay a while longer abroad, where she has lived in the last three years.

Her peace was, however, given a rude jolt penultimate week – precisely on August 24, 2021.

It came in the form of an envelope, sent by a certain Babajide Ifelowo, and a coupon filled out to indicate that she was not at home when whoever came to deliver the letter knocked at the door of her overseas home.

The envelope contained a summons of some sort, to the virtual court hearing of her own divorce suit, via Zoom.

Divorce? It was unbelievable! She had not remarried since her husband died five years ago. But here was a certain Oladayo Oladokun who claims to be her husband, and who had now filed to divorce her in the faraway United States.

The summons had also contained websites and links she was to visit, and forms she was to fill electronically, in readiness for the circuit court. There were also telephone lines she could call for any clarifications.

To make matters worse, Quadri told The Nigerian Xpress in a telephone conversation, that she last visited the United States more than three years ago. She had spent barely one week on that visit and was nowhere near anybody by the name of her alleged husband.

The invitation that arrived at her overseas home restated that the hearing, scheduled for September 22, 2021, is strictly virtual and that Quadri or her representatives were not to make any physical appearance. In other words, she would marry, live with, separate, and eventually divorce a man, without as much as ever meeting him all her life.

“Of course, there was never a wedding or marriage”, she reassured The Nigerian Xpress.

So, where could this bolt from the blue be coming from? What is the objective? Who is Oladokun?

Back to Lekki, Lagos

Quadri’s mind began to run riot. And the situation was not helped by the fact that whoever was behind this curious divorce scheme definitely knew her well, going by the details about herself she could glean from the communication.

She then remembered that her Lagos home, located in Lekki Phase 1, had been burgled several months ago. The property, which is on one-half of a twin plot of land, has the widow’s neighbour (and tenant) occupying the other wing.

The burglar(s), obviously aware that Quadri was now residing in the Diaspora and that nobody was living in (or would be returning anytime soon to) her wing of the house, took their time and ransacked the entire house. They took away several documents, many of which could not possibly have been captured in the report which the widow’s Nigerian lawyers later made to the police about the burglary. “I can recall that one or two pieces of information contained in Oladokun’s letter were in documents that did not leave Nigeria with me to my present abode abroad, let alone, US. The information must have been picked from documents I have at my home in Lekki”, Mrs. Quadri said, still puzzled.

Quadri told The Nigerian Xpress that she suspects that whoever is behind this divorce scam probably got hold of some documents relating to the building and is now scheming to take over the property located on Omorinre Johnson Street, Lekki.

To this effect, her lawyers have not only gone to inscribe the popular This-House-is-Not-for-Sale notice on the walls of the property but have gone a step further to take out a CAVEAT EMPTOR (in a national newspaper) to warn possible buyers.

She also recalls that the US address, which Oladokun and his gang erroneously assumed to be her home, and to which they had sent an initial correspondence on August 19, 2021, was actually the home of a friend. Her only link to the place is that sometime in 1999, she had stayed with the friend for quite a while. It was based on this that, when Ifelowo surfaced with the second letter, the owner of the house declined to receive a letter on behalf of somebody who hadn’t stayed at the address for over 20 years.

Quadri believes the US address must have been picked up from documents she filled in connection with that 1999 trip – documents that must have been stolen when her Lekki home was burgled.

The FBI Connection

Determined to unmask the people behind the scam, Quadri and her team spread their dragnet to social media, where they were able to pick up the Facebook trail of Oladayo Oladokun, and also put a face to him.

His Facebook account says he is a fashion designer from Fiditi, Oyo State.

What is not now clear is whether Oladokun is resident in the United States or is operating from Nigeria, using internet generated US addresses and phone numbers, which is very common among cybercrime fraudsters.

However, further checks revealed that Oladokun is actually on the wanted list of the US police. He is the first in a list of 15 persons declared wanted by the NYPD in connection with a series of identity theft cases involving about $18 million.

The HSI in New York said Oladokun and 14 others “used an elaborate and wire fraud scheme to steal over $18 million from victims”, through but not limited to stolen cheques and forged cheques as well as using stolen identities to open more than 60 bank accounts through which they siphoned the stolen funds.

One other question Quadri says is agitating her mind is: Could Oladokun be acting alone? She says the actions of a few persons before now had given her cause for suspicion. But she’s keeping her suspicions to herself for now.

Curiously too, when Quadri’s representatives ran a check on Ifelowo, who delivered the latest letter, they also came up with what they believe points to a questionable character. They thus concluded that rather than a harmless mail delivery guy, Ifelowo might as well be a member of Oladokun’s elaborate scamming network.