A former beauty queen Helen Prest-Ajayi was never married to the late managing director of First Foundation Medical Centre, Lagos, Tosin Ajayi, the deceased’s children have said.
The five children – Tomi Deru, Olumide Ajayi, Omolade Soetan, Mayowa Okeowo and Bisola Ajayi – are products of the deceased’s marriage to his estranged wife, Oluwayemisi Ajayi.
The children have been at loggerheads with Prest-Ajayi since April 2020 when their father died.
Due to their feud and a prolonged court case, Ajayi’s corpse remained in the mortuary for 10 months before they reached a compromise as regards the church and manner of his burial.
In a statement, the children said Prest-Ajayi had clearly stated in court papers that she was a “companion” and thus could never be a wife.
“We have taken this decision because it is clear to us that Helen Prest/Helen Davies (parading herself under the name of ‘Mrs. Helen Prest-Ajayi’) continues to seek to perpetuate a lie/fraud on the public by exploiting our predisposition as a quiet family to maintain an honourable and dignified silence,” they said.
“We must set the record straight that our mother, Mrs. Oluwayemisi Ajayi, and our father, Dr. Olutosin Ajayi, Founder/CEO of First Foundation, who got married in July 1974 under the Marriage Act, remained married until our father’s death in April 2020 (i.e., they were never divorced).
“We must also set the record straight that Helen Prest was never married to our father, whether under the Marriage Act, by customary marriage or any form of marriage known to our law. As many lawyers know, and Helen Prest who presumably herself is a lawyer, ought to know, our father in any event could not have been legally married to anyone else without first divorcing our mother, which he never did.
“The irony in all of this is that the fact that our father was never married to Helen Prest is only in dispute in the court of public opinion, but is not in dispute even by Helen Prest in the court documents filed on her behalf. We refer the public to the filings by Helen Prest in Suit No. ID/7096GCMW/2020 that was before the Ikeja Division of the High Court of Lagos State.”
They said specifically, paragraph 4(h) of the counter-affidavit filed on her behalf in that suit states that Helen was “his (Dr. Ajayi’s) partner and civil companion for the past 25 years prior to his death.”
Meanwhile, Prest-Ajayi’s lawyer Abiodun Owonikoko had told PUNCH that his client could be considered as a wife because she had a child with Ajayi and she was the one he considered as such at the time of his death having been estranged from his wife for over 30 years.
