K1 De Ultimate, Oyúnkóyún ‘unwanted pregnancy’, Fatherhood, and Some Legal Implications | By Misbau Alamu Lateef, PhD

“Tó bá lóyún kóyún ×2, sàráà ni.” (If she got an unwanted pregnancy, that is her own free gift) – K1

I took only a passing interest when the first viral video surfaced online last week or so. A woman, who said she had worked as K1’s cosmetologist and had been his mistress for seven years, appeared with her daughter in the viral clip, alleging that the child belonged to the Fuji legend and pleading for recognition and support.

The daughter herself, visibly pained, made a direct appeal. As a father of two beautiful daughters myself, I was moved by her plea, and I could not help noticing the striking facial resemblance between the girl and the man whose name she called. But I scrolled past, reminding myself that these were, for now, allegations.

My interest deepened this morning when an elderly woman forwarded me another video on WhatsApp, now also viral. In it, K1 and his band are performing, and to a pulsating drumbeat, he sings in Yoruba: “tó bá lóyún kóyún ×2, sàráà ni.” If she got an unwanted pregnancy, that is her own free gift. He goes further, declaring that he does not care whether the matter is escalated on TikTok, Facebook, or anywhere else. The elderly woman wanted to know my view. She asked, pointedly, what legal options are available to the alleged mistress and her daughter, and whether the child, born out of wedlock, would be regarded as a bastard in law if K1 truly fathered her.

This post is my response. It is not a finding of fact. I have no brief to establish whether the woman’s claims are true. But the song is real, and the questions it provokes are urgent. I am making this intervention purely as a legal scholar who has watched, with quiet dismay, an entrenched social crisis in which powerful men keep mistresses, father children, deny them when it becomes inconvenient, and then weaponise their celebrity to humiliate the women and silence the children. The law has something to say about this, and it is past time it was said loudly.

Let me begin with the child. The 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, in s.42, prohibits discrimination against any citizen on the ground of the circumstances of their birth. A child born out of wedlock is not a bastard in Nigerian law. That word – bastard, loaded with centuries of stigma, carries no legal meaning in our constitutional order. There are several well-settled supreme court authorities on this and it is as simple as that.

Furthermore, the Child’s Rights Act, which domesticated the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, guarantees every child the right to parental care, protection, and maintenance, irrespective of whether the parents were married. A child is entitled to know and be cared for by both parents. The marital status of the parents is irrelevant to the child’s right to identity, to maintenance, and to dignity. So the question the elderly woman asked – whether the girl would be a bastard – must be answered firmly in the negative. The law does not allow a father’s refusal to marry the mother to erase the child’s entitlement to him.

The mother, on her own part, is not without remedy. Where a man denies paternity, the woman may approach the Family Court or the High Court and seek an order for a DNA test. Nigerian courts have grown increasingly comfortable with ordering and relying upon DNA evidence in disputed paternity cases. Once paternity is scientifically established, the court can make a declaration of parentage and issue consequential orders for maintenance of the child, including provision for feeding, shelter, education, and healthcare. A father who wilfully neglects to maintain his child, after paternity is proven, may be compelled to pay periodic sums, and in some states (e.g. Lagos State), may even face criminal sanctions under laws prohibiting child neglect. The process, I must admit, is not swift, and it requires resources and resolve, but it exists, and it has been successfully employed by women in circumstances far less public than this.

There is also the matter of the viral K1 song (Oyúnkóyún) itself. If the lyrics are directed at an identifiable woman – and in this context, the link to the recent viral allegations is unmistakable – there may be grounds for an action in defamation. The tort of libel protects a person from publication of words that tend to lower her in the estimation of right-thinking members of society, expose her to ridicule, or cause her to be shunned. A hit song that brands a woman as a schemer trying to pin a pregnancy on an innocent man is, if false, deeply defamatory. The fact that it is embedded in popular music and distributed across social media platforms amplifies the damage and increases the quantum of damages a court may award. An injunction to restrain further performance or distribution of the song is also a possible remedy, though it would need to be pursued swiftly and with competent legal representation.

Beyond these specific remedies, the larger pattern must be named. This is not the first time K1 has been publicly accused of denying a child only to later accept responsibility after years of neglect. He is not the first Nigerian celebrity to use his art to mock a woman whose only offence was to demand accountability from a man she loved and trusted. This is not a Fuji problem, or a music industry problem. It is a societal sickness that cuts across class, religion, and ethnicity. Powerful men keep mistresses, make promises, father children, and then walk away as though biology can be cancelled by a change of mood. The law, for all its imperfections, is the one institution that can pierce through the wall of fame and force a man to face the consequences of his actions. But the law must be activated, and it can only be activated when women refuse to carry shame that does not belong to them.

To the woman and the child at the centre of this storm, I say this: you have rights, and you are not alone. To the elderly woman who sent me the K1 Oyúnkóyún video, thank you for stimulating this intervention and for believing that the law is not silent. And to K1 and his musical band who composed that song, I offer a gentle reminder that the same Constitution that protects his right to sing protects the child’s right to be fathered. A hit record fades. A child’s need for identity and care does not. When the applause dies, what remains is the truth, and the truth, properly pursued, will outlast every drumbeat.

Misbau Alamu Lateef, Ph.D, SFHE
The Law School
University of Hull, UK
25-07-2026.

Source: Maroof Asudemade (Facebook).