“One thing that I would love to have the answer [when I meet my ex-wife Gloria Appiah] is: “what did I do to deserve this? That’s the only thing I want to know…”
Former Ghana football star, Nii Odartey Lamptey struggled to hold back tears on live TV as he recounted how he raised three kids with ex-wife Gloria Appiah without knowing he was not their biological father.
In an interview on GHOne TV’s Cheers show with Nana Aba Anamoah last weekend, the ex-Black Stars player revealed the bubble finally burst after 20 years when the woman demanded that her first child be sent abroad for university education at a cost of about £26,000.
“It all [started] just because I couldn’t afford to pay a school fees that may be was too much for me at the time – a child is going to school in the UK and the school fees was about £26,000 and I thought I have invested all my money and I cannot afford it because they [children] are three and [all will need to follow suit]. So I took a decision to look for a good school in Ashesi University… and that’s what brought all this,” Odartey divulged.
He admitted to hearing rumours about her promiscuity a few years before but was in the process of investigating when the ex-wife compounded matters by demanding divorce over the disagreement they had had over the first child’s school fees.
According to Odartey, close pals advised him to undertake DNA tests on the kids after obtaining many recordings of the wife and her activities.
“…I was more than Anas… [and] through the recordings, one of them [friends] advised that this is what I should do – try and undertake DNA tests because they believed the kids are not mine. I was shocked…
“I couldn’t believe what they said but I decided to do it. The [divorce] case was at the court then and my friends thought I didn’t deserve what I was going through.
“To be honest, I didn’t know anything about [what] DNA [is],” he confessed.
Odartey Lamptey’s new family
Odartey said he then sought directions from his lawyer who showed him where to get it done before devising means to have the tests without raising any alarm.
“I went there [and] I paid GH¢2,000 for the four of us. I went to their schools [three children] with a private doctor. I went there [under the guise of] paying their school fees.
“Then I told them I had infection on my throat but the doctor said if they don’t cure theirs now it will worry them when they grow up so the [doctor] took their saliva and everything [needed]. So they gave us two weeks to come for the results [but] it took one month because the doctor said because the case was in court he had to be sure of the results…
“When I went for the results, the doctor asked how many years we had been together and I said 21 years. He just said straight away: ‘the kids are not yours’. I was shaking…
After four years, an Accra High Court finally gave a final ruling to the divorce case which went in favour of the former Ghana U-17 World Cup star.
During the period he got engaged to a good friend, now his wife, Ruweida Yakubu who is presently pregnant with their third child.
Watch the video below