The children of the Lagos-based billionaire oil magnate, Chief Leemon Ikpea, and his estranged wife, Mrs. Agnes, on Thursday expressed distrust over what they described as the ulterior agenda of some fourth columnists currently feasting on the divorce matter being executed between them.
Against what the children called the fake and damaging story about their parents’ private life, they said the decision by the two to end the 39-year union, was as a matter of expediency necessitated by facts and circumstances.
A section of the media had been awash with news that the oil merchant had engaged ‘a friendly court’ in Edo State to enforce the divorce against the will of his estranged wife. However, some of their children (do not want their names to be listed), who granted a telephone interview with journalists on Thursday, said that the couple decided to go their separate ways in the light of the fact that things could no longer work.
They said against earlier reports, the separation was mutual and nobody was being kicked out of the union. One of their daughters who spoke, said, “We are appealing to media houses to please give us our privacy. Most of the news out there are fake. We are a very peaceful family. The media that used the pictures of my mum with her luggage outside, people are just using that against my family, using it against my father trying to create something that is not real.
“As long as we as a family would resolve this matter internally just as it should be. Whatever it is that the court decides, we would retain within the family. I don’t think it is the business of the public. We would handle it within ourselves.”
“I will start with my dad, he is a very hardworking person. Right from when we were young, he ensured that all his children were comfortable. We would see him like twice in a week because he worked very hard to ensure that his wife and children were secured.
“Having to see all of this in the news about him is completely out of character. There is nothing he doesn’t do to make us happy and comfortable. And now that he has grandchildren, he goes beyond that.
“As for my mother as well, she was a very homely person. She ensured that all her children were properly catered for and looked clean and well fed. She played her motherly roles as a woman. But you know, at some points, things just did not work. But that does not mean that they are bad people. Both of them have done the best that they can do for their children. They have done all they can do for their family.
“They are getting divorced, that is not the end of the world, no. My father is a very hardworking, humble and generous man while my mother is a very virtuous woman and very humble. My parents are very humble and loving people. There is love in their hearts, however, the marriage did not just work. They have to move on.”
