By Gabriel Ewepu, Abuja

A non-profit organisation, One Love Foundation, OLF, Monday, has asked the National Assembly to make a law on compulsory paternity tests after childbirth to ensure fidelity among couples.

The Founder and President, OLF, Chief Patrick Eholor, disclosed moves by his organisation to sponsor a bill to ensure paternity test is conducted immediately after a woman gives birth in order to reduce the trauma men go through when they discover they are not the father of the child.

Eholor said it is imperative for Nigeria to have a law in that regard based on a disturbing report indicating that Nigeria is ranked second in paternity fraud cases worldwide after Jamaica.

The marital fidelity of Nigerian women placed Nigeria as the second highest in paternity fraud, and rated 30 per cent of paternity fraud in the world, and according to Durex’s report, Nigerian “married” women are the most sexually unfaithful in the world.

Paternity fraud is the pretence that a man is the legitimate and biological father of a child that is not his, also a woman wrongly pinning a child on a man that he owns the child while he is not the father.

Jamaica ranked first with 34.6 per cent, while Canada, the United Kingdom and France were on the list with 2.8 per cent, 1.6 per cent, and 1.4 per cent respectively.

He said: “Recently, Nigeria is ranked second in paternity fraud cases worldwide. This is quite alarming and as a matter of urgency after reliable DNA tests. I have also been a victim of this issue.

“You can imagine a child you have raised for more than two decades and now you do a paternity test because you are taking the children abroad, and then you come up with a shock that the children do not belong to you, and you know how tormenting that could be.

“It is traumatizing and heartbreaking. I am saying that Nigerian women and men should support a bill I am about to propose at the National Assembly that we should compel our Nigerian women to take a DNA test before a man can accept that child, and it is of benefit to the woman, man, and child.”

He further stated “I am suggesting that the Nigerian Government should make paternity test free. I have decided to take it upon myself and One Love Foundation to sponsor a Bill that will make sure Paternity test is compulsory immediately after childbirth, and this will drastically reduce this immoral act that has devastated the lives of many men who were innocently and lovingly raising children they never believed will be taken and given to another man by their wives they thought were faithful and submissive after many years.

“Therefore, we want this law to be in our country as a way to boost the global confidence in Nigerians, because we cannot continue like this and endanger innocent men and families.

“Remember, the mental trauma it comes with, psychological devastation and damage it causes on the emotions of the man who goes through it, hence there is the need to have a paternity test compulsory and backed up by law.”