One of the players who have stood out for the senior national team of Nigeria at the ongoing Africa Cup of Nations has been Fulham defender Calvin Bassey, who has played in all of the three games so far at the tournament.
He started the last two games after playing as a substitute in their first game of the tournament. His performances has been largely why the team hasn’t conceded in their last two games at the tournament. Games he started as a matter of fact.
While his performances has make so many followers of the team happy, the same can’t be said about his father who is unhappy over the fact that his son doesn’t want to talk to him anymore since becoming a star in not just the national team but also at club level.
“I had Issues with the mum, out of wickedness she denied me access to my children and changed my son’s surname to her maiden name,” Kingsley Ughelumba told www.totorinews.com exclusively.
“I tried my best to settle with her. We went to court in London for me to have access to my children, but she vehemently opposed me seeing my children.
“This very issue happened in 2008. The judge told us to go home and settle the matter as a family, but she denied me and that is the reason that I have not been able to have access to my children”.
He said the last time he saw his children who are four in number with Calvin as the second of them all was in 2016. Since then he hasn’t been able to have access to them not even when he visited Calvin while he was at Rangers of Scotland.
“The club officials allowed me to speak to my son. through the club’s telephone. We did speak. He said I should come to his house.
“Getting to his house, he was on call with his mother. He immediately he saw me, he became very upset, that he doesn’t want to see or talk to me. He said he was going to the gym to train.
“I had to go back to Italy dejected and since then I never had access to Calvin and my other three sons. I just want to reconcile with my four boys.
“To be candid, i don’t know the offence I committed against the mother that she should take such drastic action against me, to deprieve me access with my children,” he concluded.
However in a different interview, Calvin who has dropped his both surnames Ughelumba and Bassey at the tournament said his father abandoned them with his mother who raised them all by herself in England.
Speaking in an exclusive interview in December, Bassey was asked about his estranged father, and told The Athletic, “He’s just not in my life — we lived with him but that was when I was really young. Since I was six, it has been Mum and us boys.
“I knew that if I got the chance to put my name on the back of a shirt I wanted it to be my mum’s name — my way of saying thank you.”
Mohammed Mowiz Suleiman
