Introduction:
Seinye has gone ahead to read her own version of the Will in a manner that many observers say exposes her intentions to grab her husband’s estate at the expense of his older biological sons.
Investigation reveals that until 2002, Chief O. B. Lulu-Briggs did not know that he had other biological children beside his three male children and one female child namely: Senibo, Dumo, Sofiri and Rachael.
When Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs realized that Mrs. Seinye Lulu-Briggs had lodged a Will and asked that it be read on the 12th of April, he in collaboration with his two other brothers, got a court order to stop the reading of the Will and an order against the executors, requesting to know who authorized them to take a date to read the Will.
Recall, that Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs had also lodged a Will which, he said, was giving to him by their father but wants it read after the burial in due reverence to their father. According to Dumo, there was no need to distract the family from the primary purpose of giving their father a befitting burial.
High Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs blessing his son, Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs, ahead of the 2014 Rivers State PDP governorship primaries
Adamant on reading a Will before her husband’s burial, Seinye went to court to vacate the court order that Dumo and his brother got stopping the reading of her own version of the Will.
On the 25th of July, the court granted Seinye her request and struck out the suit filed by Dumo and his brothers on the basis that no reasonable action was brought against Seinye as a person.
Commenting on the ruling, Dumo says that the court did not take into cognizance that, there were other executors apart from Seinye. If the court struck out the suit because there was no reasonable action brought against Seinye, what about the two executors who have said with an affidavit in court that they were not aware that the Will was to be read? Instructively, the action was brought against the executors and Seinye is only one of them.
The ruling that struck out the suit to stop the reading of the Will was given as late as 3:15pm on Thursday, 25th of July that got tongues wagging that the Rivers State Government may have shown interest, considering that Dumo is a prominent politician, whose political status could be boosted exceedingly, if allowed to inherit a reasonable portion of his late father’s humongous wealth.
Armed with the judgement, Seinye’s lawyer on that same 25th July, informed Dumo via an email, that having vacated the court order stopping the reading of the Will, the Will would be read the next morning the 26th July at 8am in the Chief registrar’s office. Dumo said that he got the information at about 7pm, when he saw the email.
Consequently, Dumo’s lawyers wrote to Seinye’s lawyers, stating that the notice for the reading of the Will ought to have been issued by the probate registry indicating the particular date and time and not by Seinye’s lawyers. Therefore, they (Dumo and brothers) have not been giving a proper notice.
Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs who lives in Lagos was unable to be in court the following day 26th July, his two brothers were also unable to be in court and none of the five executors that were listed were said to be in court other than Seinye.
Below is the full text of Seinye’s version of the will as circulated in the media:
“I Chief Olu Benson Lulu-Briggs, of the Briggs family of Abonnema in Akuku-Toru Local Government Area in Rivers State, now residing in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, hereby make publish and declare this to be my Last Will and Testament, hereby revoking all former wills, codicils and any other form of testamentary bequest.
“First, I wish to be buried and for my wife Seinye Lulu-Briggs, if she survives me, to take active part in my funeral services. I direct that my funeral service be simple and done in Kalabari tradition as allowed by my Christian beliefs in recognition of the dignity of my position as head, Young Briggs House. I request that there be no mourning or weeping. Any member of my family and a beneficiary under this will, who refuses to participate in my burial, shall be completely excluded from the benefit under this will, as if such person had predeceased me.
“For the reasons specified in a letter, I have executed on the date of this will, I have not made any provision in this will for my sons, Dumo, Senibo or Sofiri. If this will is contested by any of my sons, I request that such letter be introduced as evidence of the reasons why I have not made any such provision.
“I will establish a trust in Nigeria, the Ebuye Trust, and for the purpose procure the incorporation of holding trust company (ies) in Nigeria. The Ebuye Trust shall be set up broadly in accordance with the following directions;
“The trustees of the trust and directors of the trust holding company(ies) shall, at all times, comprise a maximum of 4 persons, who in the first instance will be His Excellency Donald Duke, Mr John Sassine, Dr A. Odaga and Seinye; and in the event that any of them decline to act as trustee or a vacancy otherwise occurs, shall include such other persons as the remaining persons nominated as trustees shall decide.
“The executive trustee and director of the trust holding company (ies) will be Seinye, whilst the other trustees of the trust and directors will act in a non-executive capacity.”
In another schedule, the Will reads:
“I, High Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs, on this 2nd day of October, 2012, being of a clear mind and without neither duress nor persuasion do make the following declarations:
That my following children namely: Senibo Lulu-Briggs, Dumo Lulu-Brriggs and Sofiri Lulu-Briggs are expressly excluded from all forms of inheritance from my assets, estates, companies and all forms of property (ies), acquired) by myself or accruing from my interest and all money in all my Bank accounts, both personal, joint and companies where my interests are in existence.
That the female by name Nwamma Opusunji brought to me by my cousin, Madam Soton Tom Briggs, who hails from Opobo, is not my daughter and I have never acknowledged her as such. Therefore, I hereby declare that on no account should she be entitled to inherit directly or indirectly from my estates, assets, property (ies) belonging to me or any interest in such business/companies both on my personal acquisition and interest in various companies”.
Comment
It is mindboggling how High Chief O. B. Lulu-Briggs would in 2011, install his son Dumo Lulu-Briggs, as Chief of the Lulu-Briggs family and head of the family in his absence, only for the High Chief to state a year after that Dumo is “expressly excluded from all forms of inheritance from my assets, estates, companies and all forms of property (ies), acquired) by myself”.
How does Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs get the heirlooms of the Lulu-Briggs’ chieftaincy if he is “expressly excluded from inheritance”? Does it mean that High Chief O. B. Lulu-Briggs, having not named another person to head the Lulu-Briggs family in the so-called Will, has put an end to his own chieftaincy lineage – a legacy he fought for all his life?
The so-called Will made Mrs. Seinye Lulu-Briggs “The executive trustee and director of the trust holding company (ies)” forever, without a successor even when she dies.
The purported Will also disinherited Chief O. B. Lulu-Briggs daughter, Nwamma, with the likely intent to put her out of the way, since she is older than Seinye’ daughter, Solate and could play the role of first daughter instead of Solate.
Most importantly, the Will that was read, presupposes that Chief O. B. Lulu-Briggs had forgotten the condition on which his three sons handed over their shares in Moni Pulo to their father which is in “fostering family relationship, for continuing love and affection”. For which Senibo, Dumo and Sofiri transferred to their father a total of 268,445,000 shares, which was 67.1% of the total shares of Moni Pulo.
Would Chief O. B. Lulu-Briggs be said to be “fostering family relationship, for continuing love and affection” by bequeathing assets handed over to him on very clear conditions to Seinye?
Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs has since lodged objections in court that, that can’t be the Will of their father who he said was a very traditional person, saying that “we are sure that our father, knowing the basis of that settlement could not have done any such thing”.
It is however instructive to note that the 2004 consent judgement stated in very clear terms that all the conditions contained in the Consent Judgement shall be subject to strict compliance with the terms of the Settlement Deed. It was further agreed that the settlement parties or any of them and the defender shall be at liberty to set aside this Consent Judgement upon a breach of any of the terms of the Settlement Deed. The so-called Will has obviously breached the terms of the 2004 settlement.
Who are High Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs’ children?
Investigation reveals that until 2002, Chief O. B. Lulu-Briggs did not know that he had other biological children beside his three male children and one female child namely: Senibo, Dumo, Sofiri and Rachael.
However, in 2002, when Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs got married to Seinye, she came with her twenty years old daughter, Solate and later adopted a son, Iyowuna in 2008. A male child, Dateim was introduced into the family in 2007 by a his mother. The chief had earlier adopted a male child of his former wife and renamed him, Onimim while a female child, Nwanma who is older than Solate, was also introduced to the family.
Senibo 69, Dumo 55 and Sofiri 48 are the older sons. Rachael was born in 1992. These are children of High Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs on whom he either performed the Kalabari “Iya” ceremony or got married to their mothers.
Family sources revealed that the birth of Rachael was of great joy to the O.B. Lulu-Briggs family who until her birth neither had a daughter nor a granddaughter. At the time, there were only three male children and the eldest, Senibo already had five boys of his own. There was no girl in the family.
Rachel’s birth broke the jinx and Chief Lulu-Briggs was said to be so happy that he named her after his beloved mother, Rachel. – The name of his hotel which he named after his mother.
Dateim was born in 1993, but was said to be unknown to High Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs until 2007, when he was brought to the chief at the age of 14 as chief’s biological son.
When Dateim was brought, Seinye was said to have raised serious issues that the boy could not have been her husband’s child. But Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs reminded his wife, Seinye that she had also brought in her daughter, Solate in the same manner.
With the coming of Dateim into the Lulu-Briggs family, it was learnt that Seinye felt threatened and she had to quickly adopt a boy of her own, Iyowuna in 2008.
The introduction of Solate into the family is said to be the root cause of the current crisis that has befallen the Lulu-Briggs family after the death of their patriarch.
The story is that in 2002, when Seinye became the wife of Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs, she came with her tall and dark daughter, Solate (the Lulu-Briggs are mostly tall and dark), claiming that Solate was chief’s biological daughter.
Some adult sons of Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs who had known Seinye long before she married their father and who also knew the daughter, Solate, raised objections, saying that for the long period they had known Seinye, before she got married to their father, she never told them that the girl was their father’s child.
These adult sons of Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs argued that if their father knew that he had a daughter in 1982, he won’t have named Racheal born in 1992 after his mother and expressed the joy of having the first female child in the family. Coincidentally, Solate is dark and tall like their father’s mother and should have been the proper person to be named Rachael if her birth were known to the family.
It was revealed that Seinye insisted and Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs agreed that they both had a relationship in 1981 at the Federal Palace Hotel when Chief was the Deputy National Chairman of the National Party of Nigeria, NPN.
It was revealed further that Seinye said that she couldn’t bring Solate to Chief Lulu-Briggs at birth because the chief was married at the time.
But family members reminded her that Chief was unmarried from 1983-1990, having separated from his wife. Why couldn’t Seinye in those seven years bring her daughter?
Investigation reveals that after the death of Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs, in the Will Seinye allegedly deposited, it was stated that Solate is not the biological child of Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs but his adopted child. Then in a subsequent codicil, it was said that Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs could not have adopted Solate because she was over 18 years old at the time she was brought to him, so she is neither his biological child nor adopted child but he accepted her as his child anyway.
As it stands, Mrs. Seinye Lulu-Briggs does not have any biological child for the late Head of Oruwari House, Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs.
Seinye got tongues wagging when she referred to her husband’s sons as children born out of wedlock whereas, she was legally married to Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs in court.
“Does she not know that in 1988 when she was still a complete stranger to the family, Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs did the Kalabari “Iya” ceremony on Senibo and Dumo, conferring on them the highest level of legitimacy? Does Seinye not know that Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs married Sofiri’s mother in the Anglican Church in 1971? Has Seinye forgotten that the chief performed “Iya” ceremony on Rachael in 2013, this time, witnessed by Seinye herself?
“Was it not Dumo that bailed Seinye from Olu Obasanjo Police Station and took her to his father’s house and talked to his father to take her as his wife? Is that the woman that is now calling Dumo names and fighting him?
“How many children did Seinye have in her two marriages, first to a man said to be 14 years younger and later to a man 28 years older?” they asked.
“No child. Her two daughters were born to two different men out of wedlock”, they muttered.
“Seinye needs to be told that Senibo’s mother was the first love of young O.B. Lulu-Briggs when he was a fisher boy in Abonnema. Dumo’s mother was given to O.B. Lulu-Briggs by her father, Late Chief I.S. Danagogo in 1963, when all he could afford was “Ari Ibara emi” and they went to live together as Mr. & Mrs. O.B. Lulu-Briggs in Lagos.
“These were the wives of Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs in his years of long suffering in social and economic wilderness.
“Mrs. Seinye Lulu-Briggs should allow the O.B. Lulu-Briggs family thrive even after the burial of her husband and not bury the name of the illustrious family that was attained through decades of hard work and service, together with him.
“Like the Kalabari Chiefs of old, High Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs populated his household and built a great family” they concluded.
Writer, communication/education consultant at Jack Edmund's Consults Nig. Ltd.
