‘Helen Prest Was My Late Husband’s Concubine’ – Widow Tells Court

The battle over the property of the late Lagos-based businessman, Dr. Tosin Ajayi, is heating up on the Federal Excessive Court docket in Lagos, together with his widow Oluwayemisi Ajayi, elevating allegations of adultery towards a former Miss Nigeria, Helen Prest.

The widow, in a 27-paragraph counter-affidavit filed towards Prest’s swimsuit, stated she and her husband had been legally married beneath the Marriage Act and by no means divorced until his loss of life.

She alleged that Prest, with full data of Dr. Ajayi’s subsisting marriage, carried on a bootleg relationship with him as his concubine.

The swimsuit was filed on July 23, 2021, and has First Basis Medical Engineering Firm Ltd (FFMECL); Registrar-Common of the Company Affairs Fee (CAC); Oluwayemisi Ajayi; and Patrick Abak, a lawyer as first to fourth respondents.

Whereas Helen Prest was listed because the second plaintiff, her daughter Tomisin Ajayi was listed as the primary plaintiff.

The authorized battle is centred on who ought to management FFMECL and different properties owned by the agency.

In her 71-paragraph affidavit in assist of the swimsuit towards the respondents and deposed to by Helen Prest’s daughter (first plaintiff), she averred that her late dad married Oluwayemisi they usually had youngsters, however they had been separated for 35 years earlier than her father’s demise.

Tomisin claimed that in the middle of the separation, the late Ajayi and her mom, Helen Prest married and gave start to her.

However in a counter-affidavit deposed to by the widow and filed on September 13, 2021, Oluwayemisi Ajayi averred that she was conscious that Tomisin presents herself because the “love little one of an adulterous relationship” between her deceased husband, Dr. Ajayi, “and his adulteress,” Helen Prest.

The deponent said that though she was not able to verify if Tomisin Ajayi is a toddler of her late husband, as a result of the late Ajayi didn’t introduce her to the household in his lifetime, she was prepared to simply accept the primary plaintiff in good religion as one of many beneficiaries of the property of her deceased husband.

On the possession of FFMECL, the widow claimed that she and the late Ajayi constructed the agency collectively and that at no time was her deceased husband the only real useful shareholder or director of the corporate. She said that because the incorporation of FFMEC, she had at all times been a shareholder and director of the corporate.

On her marital standing to the late Ajayi, the widow averred that she was legally married to the deceased and there was no divorce. She challenged Helen Prest to current any doc in opposition to her marriage certificates.

She said: “My late husband by no means cohabited (and by no means determined to cohabit) as a common-law associate with the second plaintiff in the UK.

“The second plaintiff was desirous of a marriage and legally cognizable relationship with my late husband, Dr. Ajayi, from the outset (together with urging him to divorce me), a proposition which he persistently rejected all through his life regardless of the second plaintiff’s incessant solicitations for identical.”

The widow said additional: “Though Helen Prest was a concubine of my deceased husband, she was by no means a shareholder, director, officer, worker or enterprise associate of, or in any other case related to the affairs of, FFMECL or some other firms by which my husband was a significant shareholder (together with these whereby I’m additionally a shareholder).”