How Serial Marital Fraudster, Eniola Babajide Lawon, Married, Duped Nigerian Woman of N10 Million

This is not a tale by the moonlight or another Nollywood box office; it is a story of an elderly man that has reportedly perfected the act of duping unsuspecting women on the pretext of marrying them and making their life better as a supposedly responsible man.

But it appears that the man is far from being responsible in any way going by the details of his character and deceit available to us.

The man, whose name was given as Mr. Babajide Lawon Eniola we were told, found it easy to claim one profession or the other all in a bid to scam his unsuspecting victims.

Babajide Lawon Eniola

He allegedly started from Nigeria, moved to the United States of America from where he still spreads the tentacles of his alleged dubious activities to other parts of the world including Nigeria.

First Weekly Magazine was privileged to meet with a middle-aged woman, who said that she innocently fell victim of the ‘lies and deceit ‘of 67-year-old Mr. Babajide Eniola.

Babajide reportedly came to Nigeria in March 2017 for the purpose of concretising their relationship. They later got married at the Yaba Marriage Registry in Lagos, Nigeria.

He reportedly left the woman much poorer than he met her, and inflicted her with much scars that would make her regret the ‘relationship’ for the rest of her life.

The woman, who simply gave her name as Yewande, was obviously distraught as she narrated how she had expected Mr. Eniola to help her relocate abroad so that she could start working and earning money to ensure the completion of her children’s education as she has been a single parent for over 20 years.

Yewande’s story is produced here just as she narrated it to us:

“I was connected to Mr. Babajide Eniola via one Ladi, a pharmacist in Maryland, USA. My relationship with 67-year-old Mr. Eniola jump-started after several telephone calls and we began to discuss further and he expressed his love for me in the process.

“We got talking and Mr. Eniola deceived me that he was an architect and a divorcee. I told him I was a trader and a single parent with two children.  I informed him from the onset that I needed to travel out of the country to enhance my financial status and make ends meet as one of my children schools abroad.

“I told him that due to the recession in Nigeria at that time things were very difficult for me and I realized that the completion of my children’s education was at stake and that I had to re-strategize. He subsequently told me that I should not worry that he would do everything possible to assist me to relocate to the United States of America as he is a citizen of the country. He told me that he was a divorcee.

“I believed him because of some discussions we had overtime in the course of the relationship, and he used to pick my calls anytime of the day; be it 2am or 3am, and I felt he was responsible and I had no cause to doubt that he was a genuine divorcee as I called him on phone all through the day and night.

“Mr. Eniola told me that he had two children from a white woman, who he had divorced, and he also professed his love for me. Our relationship continued overtime such that I thought he was a responsible and reliable man.

“I made him understand that I wanted to work and earn money, and that I was even ready to work as a nanny to ensure the completion of the education of my children. He informed me that he finished from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US and that he was an architect.

“In the cause of the relationship, I told him that I didn’t mind to get a 10 year visa to the United Kingdom, but he convinced me that America was better, he even spoke to my children on some occasions, while I also spoke with his son on phone.

“At the end of the day, he informed me that he would be coming to Nigeria and that he used to do some architectural designs alongside Architect Ayo Assaf. He told me that he did architectural works both in Nigeria and in the United States. He said he would come around to marry me and that we would now use the marriage certificate to file for me at the embassy.

“When I enquired about his family, he told me that most of his brothers and sisters had died and that he was the last child of his parents, but that he had an elder sister, who is a top prophetess with the Cherubim and Seraphim, Ayo Ni O in Lagos.

“I was made to understand that the husband of the prophetess used to be the Managing Director of a top company in Lagos. He informed me that he had told the woman about me and that we would visit her, when he comes around. He also told me that he and Architect Ayo Assaf did some architectural works for Chief Bode George. He said he had two children from ex-wife and that they alternated weekends with him and the woman.

“During one of our discussions on phone, he told me that the money he was paying on child support to his ex-wife was much and that he needed to come to Nigeria to raise money. At intervals, he made me understand that he had shortfalls in the child support of $5,000 and he requested for loans from me and that he would refund the money, when he gets to Nigeria.

“I sent a total of $2,400, excluding charges to him in three tranches at the exchange rate of N497 to a dollar totaling N1,192,800 (One million one hundred and ninety two thousand eight hundred naira). I sent the money to the account of one, Marilyn Cudjoe in SunTrust Bank in the United States. He lied to me that Marilyn, who he claimed was nee Makanjuola, was his cousin, but I discovered recently that she was his legal wife.

“He subsequently got some money from me as loans on different occasions, when he got to Nigeria on the premise that he would repay them after collecting the balance payments of the contracts he had executed in the country during his previous visits. The total money I lent him was $12,000 at the rate of N497 to a dollar (Five Million Nine Hundred and Sixty Four Thousand Naira). I had to rally round some of my friends and associates to raise the money for him.

“Subsequently, I suggested that we should go and see his only surviving sister, the prophetess so that she could be part of the court wedding we were planning. He called the woman on phone in my presence, he however, informed me that the woman told him that she would be travelling to London that same night.

He then told me that he had another relative in Meiran, Lagos, who had sight challenge, but that he would not go there because they didn’t tell her about another relative of theirs that died recently. I told him we had to see some of his relatives; but he said there was no need for that. He said that he had some friends with whom he had been for over 40 years that could be part of the wedding.

“It was one of those friends that eventually signed for him at Yaba Registry, where we did the wedding. He said that the first son of the prophetess would also attend the wedding, but he did not come eventually.

“I didn’t suspect any foul at that time. I recall that Ladi used to call him on phone frequently and I also noticed that a lady called Ama (who I later discovered was Marilyn Cudjoe) was consistently calling him from abroad complaining about the welfare of the children. If I asked him who she was, he would tell me that she was the housemaid he hired for his children staying with his ex-wife. I would then say she ought to discuss any issue she had with their mother, but he would tell me that their mother was a harsh woman, which was why the maid preferred to discuss issues affecting the children with him directly.

“That was why I decided to call his friend, Ladi, who revealed to me that the woman, Ama (Marilyn Cudjoe) that was calling always him on phone bore him his two children and that the white woman never had any child for him. When I asked about his marital status, Ladi said he was not sure if he was legally married to the woman. He however said that he had told him before he left America to tell me the whole secret. Let me state here that I made all these discoveries after we had consummated the relationship at the marriage registry in Yaba, Lagos.

“On one occasion, Ladi enquired on phone about our location if it was Dubai or Nigeria, I replied that we were not in Dubai and that we were in Nigeria together. I told him that Mr. Eniola never mentioned anything about Dubai throughout our relationship before and after he came to Nigeria. When I said this, Ladi was surprised and shouted ‘I am flabbergasted.’ I would never forget that English. He said it was a surprise to him because Mr. Eniola had promised to help him lend $250,000 for his proposed pharmacy business from the fund of a former petroleum minister in Nigeria, Diezani Allison-Madueke in his care in a bank in Dubai.

“Ladi told me that Mr. Eniola was collecting money from him and some other people in the US and that he was deceiving them that he would raise money from the said Dubai account of Diezani.

“The man said further that Mr. Eniola had robbed him of all his life savings as he promised to help him get some loans from Diezani funds for his pharmacy business.

“I was surprised when I heard about Diezani money because he never told me anything about the woman or any money belonging to her. Ladi even told me that He was the one feeding the family of Mr. Eniola in the United States because of the belief that he would help him get loans for his business. Ladi told me a lot of things and I asked him if Mr. Eniola was truly an architect, he said the man must have told me a lie and that he read economics.

“I later asked Mr. Eniola about true relationship with Ama, who he had told me was his children’s housemaid, he lied to me that she was his baby mama and that I would not have married him if I knew that it was an African woman that had children for him.

“I later discovered that the lady’s mother is from Calabar in Cross River State, Nigeria, while her father is a Ghanaian. He begged me and said that she only had children for him and that they were not legally married.

“My investigations revealed that the divorce paper Mr. Eniola brought to the marriage registry before our wedding, was the one he had with Helen, whom he divorced in the 80s. I later learnt that the reason he was not staying with Marilyn was because the first child she had for him, a girl is a special child, while the second child is a boy.

“Mr. Eniola begged me that he was not married to the lady, and that he could never marry her even if I did not marry him. He said that she had bad characters and that even  the late husband of her sister begged/warned him not to formalize their relationship as he was going to regret his actions if he failed to listen to him. He said he had several reasons why he could not marry her, and that he decided to impregnate her when he was desperate to have a child after his divorce with the white ex-wife, Helen.

“According to him, the second child Ama had for him was a mistake, as he said that he didn’t touch her for five years. I was reliably informed that Ama (Marilyn Cudjoe) had told the American Government that Mr. Eniola ran away and left her and the children. So, the government gave her a house, and Mr. Eniola could not live there with them, he only went there secretly at night.

“Mr. Eniola collected about $12,000 from me, he even collected $2,000, when he was going. He returned to the United States of America on 24th April, 2017 after spending six weeks in Nigeria and got to the US on 26th April.

“He gave me an FCMB cheque of N6 Million and another N340,000 cheque before he left Nigeria and told me to give someone N100,000 from the second cheque. These were supposed to be repayment of the loans he collected from me while in Nigeria. The cheque ought to mature a week after he left, but the two cheques bounced.

“During his stay in Nigeria he awaited purported payment into his bank account for the various contracts he said he had undertaken in his previous visits to Nigeria.

“He knew from the onset that part of the money lent to him were meant for my children’s school fees and borrowed funds. Upon leaving, he told me that his business associate, Architect Ayo Assaf was going to fund his FCMB account since he could not get it funded before leaving Nigeria after me telling several stories and given excuses.

“The scam has affected the schooling of my children and the incident has seriously affected my finances, while I am also indebted to a lot of friends, who helped me out with funds.

“When Mr. Eniola got to the United States of America, I received calls and threat messages from Marilyn Cudjoe, who I believed was his baby mama until mid-August, when I located the house of his sister, the prophetess through GPS, who revealed the whole secrets to me. He had told me that the street, where the sister was staying in Ogudu was named after family.The prophetess then called one of her children in London on phone, who confirmed the claim. I was told that Mr. Eniola is a pathological liar.

“The prophetess further revealed to me that Mr. Eniola was legally married to Marilyn Cudjoe. She said he once impregnated a seamstress in their mother’s house and that the woman bore him a boy 27 years ago, and that he married her traditionally.

“I remember an occasion, when we were in the car around Maryland, Lagos and he had a call, he told the person on phone that he would not be able to do a certain architectural job in Nigeria as was already fully booked in the US. He then dropped the phone, and I asked him why he didn’t want to take up the contract. He said it was Mr. Ayo Otedola that called him and that he wanted him to do some drawings for Mr. Femi Otedola, his (Ayo’s) younger brother.

“He said that Mr. Femi Otedola acquired some land at Epe, Lagos, Nigeria and that he wanted him to do the architectural drawing. He informed me that he and Architect Ayo Assaf did some architectural jobs for Chief Bode George on some previous visits to Nigeria. Ayo Assaf was said to have finished from Howard University, where Allison-Madueke also finished from. A friend of Mr. Eniola confided in me that he lied about finishing from MIT, and that he also finished from Howard. Mr. Eniola told me that he and Ayo Otedola attended Kings College, Lagos for their secondary education.

“I advised him to take up the job that every kobo counts. He then deceived me that he called the man back on phone. He later told me that he and Ayo Assaf wanted to have a meeting with Mr. Ayo Otedola at Oriental Hotel, Lagos. I got a driver to take him to the hotel, where he stayed for one hour. It was a friend’s driver that took him there. He said that he would have another meeting with Mr. Femi Otedola and the same driver took him there on another day. He was even teasing that Ayo dressed heavily to the meeting unlike him that dressed casually.

“One of the revelations about Mr. Eniola was that he once scammed the husband of one of his nieces in the process of helping them to purchase two cars from auction sales in the United States. I learned that they went for the auction together, and that the money for the vehicles was transferred into the account of his wife, Marilyn Cudjoe. They told me further that Mr. Eniola never paid the money to the auctioneers.

“I was told that a week later, the niece and her husband called Mr. Eniola on phone to find out why they had not got deliveries of the car, he told them that the cars had minor faults and that they were with the mechanics for repairs.

“According to the informant, after the couple had waited for weeks, they called the auctioneers on phone, who informed them that they were never paid the money for the car by Mr. Eniola.

“I was informed that, when they called Mr. Eniola on phone, he lied to them that the cars were with the mechanics, but that they discovered that this was not true. I learned that they continued to call Mr. Eniola on phone, but that he kept lying to them about his whereabouts and that the couple is yet to get the money back from him.

“The same source revealed that there was a time Mr. Eniola raised an alarm that he had cancer and that he needed the family members to contribute money for his treatment. I was informed that the family met and agreed to contribute money for him, but the source said that she was adamant as the man had previously duped her.

“I gathered that while the deliberation was on for weeks, someone close to Mr. Eniola called the family on phone and informed them the man framed the cancer story.

“I also learned from Mr. Eniola’s friends that he once duped one Mr. Niyi Folorunsho of a sum of N11 Million. I was told that the man paid $5,000 into the account of Marilyn Cudjoe (his wife) on two occasions on the pretext that he would assist him with some business transactions and till date he never assisted the man or give him back his money.

“As if that was not enough, another reliable informant told me that Mr. Eniola once duped Lai Mohammed and Alhaji Saro of a huge amount of money over the purchase of three vehicles. Sources told me that he met the two personalities through one Shade in Nigeria. I was informed that he promised to help them buy three vehicles from the US, but that he only bought two vehicles for them, while he is yet to deliver the remaining one.

“As I earlier mentioned in the story, upon tracing the house of the sister of Mr. Eniola in Ogudu, Lagos, I discovered that all that he told me were lies and that all the transactions from the onset were scam.

“Also, in my pursuit for the truth about Mr. Eniola, when I discovered that he must have scammed me, I was able to get the phone number of Mr. Ayo Otedola, who conferenced my call alongside Mr. Femi Oguniya, and they both confirmed that Mr. Eniola was a fraudster and Mr. Oguniya claimed that Mr. Eniola once duped him N17 Million. Mr. Ayo Otedola revealed to me that he never had any meeting with Mr. Eniola, when he came to Nigeria as against all the meetings he told me they had at Oriental Hotel and Mr. Femi Otedola’s office both in Lagos.

”Oguniya told me that Mr. Eniola lived in their house for 17 months in Nigeria and that it got to a time that he was deceiving people that he was the owner of the house. He alleged that he was telling people that he was the one that owned the house and that he even gave us his car, which was the car we gave him to be driving around.

“Oguniya told me that they had to seize Mr. Eniola’s American passport before he went to get another one, and that they could release the passport to me as a proof.

“I later called Mr. Eniola on phone and told him of all my discoveries about him and his lies and that he should refund the money he lent from me because part of the money was meant for my children’s education. He also knew that I had been working all my life for my two children so that they could have good education and that I have been a single parent for over 20 years.

“Mr. Eniola later told me on phone that he did not have any money and that he did not lend any money from me. He told me the wedding he did with me was fake and that I should get lost and do whatever I liked.

“Upon the intervention of some of his friends, he promised to send $5,000 back to me as part of the repayment of the loan, but he has since not sent any money to me.

“When I told him I would go back to his sister to help me plead with him, he dared and threatened me never to go to his sister’s house again that if I tried it I should bear whatever I experience there as the sister would deal with me.

“In my effort to be martially free from Mr. Eniola, I went back to the marriage registry, and they told me that I would pay N60,000 for the annulment of the wedding, and presently it costs N150,000 for proper divorce, but this cannot be done until two years’ time.

“However, I still continued my search for Mr. Eniola’s family members so that I could get part of my money if not all as I am still indebted to a lot of people. Someone gave me the phone number of one of the family members of Mr. Eniola, who sent some messages to me concerning the past deeds of the man. The man, whose name I would not mention for obvious reasons, said that I should congratulate myself because Mr. Eniola’s attitude/lies had led to the death of many people.

“A reliable source then told me that I should count myself lucky for being alive after the whole mess.

He said that pursuant to Mr. Eniola’s wickedness to women, he once had a fiancee called; Toun (Ebute Metta) and that the woman aborted pregnancies for him on about three occasions.

“I was told that one of the abortions was done very late and that it affected the woman’ s womb such that she could no longer conceive a child.

“The lady, I was told, remained single for a long time, but the informant added that she got married later on two occasions and that the marriages could not produce any child, which caused her to commit suicide.

“A source said that Mr. Eniola continued his evil adventure with women by going into a relationship with one Iyabo (Ebute Metta).

“I gathered that this relationship was so serious that he eventually got engaged to the woman and that invitation cards were sent out for their wedding afterwards.

“The source added that it was so unfortunate that Mr. Eniola did not show up on the day fixed for the wedding.

“What I was told was that he ought to have been around a day to the wedding, but that he kept lying to the family of the lady on the phone until the d-day.

“The lady reportedly had mental problem after the unfortunate incident, but I learnt that the family was able to get her back to her normal senses after making several efforts through men and women of God.

“The source added that Mr. Eniola also dated one Miss Baltimore in the US with whom he lived for two years and that he lied to the lady that he was a medical doctor.

“According to him, the lady used to drop Mr. Eniola in front of a hospital in the US, where he claimed to be working as a doctor. This went on for two years during which period he allegedly extorted the lady before she eventually discovered his lies.

“I was told that one of the reasons his marriage to his American ex-wife, Helen failed was due to his unfaithfulness and dubious character.

“I was told that whilst married to Helen, Mr. Eniola invited a Nigerian girlfriend to the United States on the pretext that she was his cousin. I gathered that anytime Helen went to work, Mr. Eniola would be having illicit affairs with the lady until Helen caught them red-handed.

“I was getting uncomfortable with the way he was hiding his phone and making secret calls towards the end of his stay in Nigeria after the marriage. This made me to access some of his phone chats and I discovered that he had series of chats with different women across the world. I am in possession of a chat, where he sent pictures of a collection of wedding rings to a lady, asking her to pick her size, while promising to marry her.

“I also discovered that he was chatting with several ladies and when I challenged him about this, he begged that all the chats were due to the fact that he was staying alone and that he was bored, which he said was why he was having discussions with the ladies.

“I later discovered that the real surname of Mr. Eniola is Erinoso and that Eniola is his mother’s maiden name.

“A source told me that Mr. Eniola dropped his father’ s name because of his plan to perpetuate evil in the United States of America.

“I just want the whole world to know that MR. OLAJIDE BABAJIDE ENIOLA that is currently staying in the United States of America as a citizen is a scammer, who has not stopped deceiving and defrauding several women. He has since blocked my number on his phone and threatening me, which was why I decided to expose him and inform the whole world about his activities and fraudulent acts.

“Mr. Eniola is unperturbed that his evil acts have affected the education of my children and my finances generally. I just want people to help me out so that I can retrieve the money this heartless man lent from me as some were borrowed from friends.”