Igbo Culture And DNA Test; Who Owns A Child?

By Nnenna Joseph 

A sad tale involving the death of Tunde Thomas who was married to a former First City Monument Bank staff, Moyo Thomas broke the internet this year. Mr. Thomas was said to have died of a heart attack after his wife told him that his 2 children are not his. According to the story, the children belonged to her boss, Adam Nuru the Managing Director of FCMB. A lot of families have fallen apart in the last couple of weeks following the incident as men have taken their children for DNA tests.

This caused social media users, online and offline to press for DNA tests to be conducted instantly after a child’s birth, such that a father is not deceived into raising a child that is not his, biologically. This submission brought about so many schools of thought on the issue, some say DNA test is expensive and not many families can afford it, others say it establishes distrust among the couple and they can never come back from it. 

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It is on record that Africa has one of the highest rates of paternity fraud in the world. At the US embassy in Nigeria, armed guards are brought in when DNA results are read out to a couple. 

There was a very attention-catching school of thought that needed further investigation. Anaedoonline.ng reporters dug the ground to find the authenticity of this. It said that any child born in a family belongs to the head of that family regardless of the man who impregnated the mother. This further claims that DNA testing is a taboo in Igbo land and a man should raise any child born by his wife as his own.  After a series of investigations, this is what we discovered. 

Mr. Nwashindu an Igbo historian and researcher at the University of Nigeria Nsukka says this: 

“Bride price covers everything but is not a guarantee for infidelity. Communities differ in terms of tolerance to infidelity and sexuality. Some communities would permit a woman to engage in extramarital affairs when the husband is impotent but there must be some rites attached therein since Igbo are sex-restricted people”

Ekene Ugwuanyi, a native of Obukpa in Nsukka local government in Enugu state says, “Whether DNA or not, bride price determines the paternity of a child in Obukpa and in Nsukka as a whole aside Enugu Ezike. The blood somehow is irrelevant culturally.  A child must locate its biological father once paternity is identified”. 

In Imo state it is stated that “Iko anaghi eku Nwa” meaning that “A man who has paid no dowry owns no child” the assertion is equally true for all parts of Imo state. 

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In Ebonyi State, it is believed that the man who pays the bride price is the father of all the children the woman will give birth to. This means that if a single mother with five children marries a man who is not the biological father of any of the children, the man who paid her bride price becomes the legitimate father of all her children, whether they were born before or after the marriage.

In addition, in Ohaozara Ebonyi state, there is a tradition where a man can pay the bride price of a deceased mother and all her children will become his. As a result, different customs apply to different cultures.

It is important to note that before the advent of DNA testing, cases of infidelity among Igbo women were determined by who was caught red-handed and had nothing to do with the biological father of the child.

AnaedoOnline