Yohane Banda, 32, earns just a few pounds a month growing potatoes and onions in a mud hut village in Malawi.

But now his 13-month-old son David, also known as Davie, will grow up in luxurious splendour with the pop superstar — who has a fortune estimated at £248MILLION reports Sun UK.

Yohane, whose 28-year-old wife Marita died of complications a week after giving birth to the boy, said: “I’m very happy. As you can see there is poverty in my village.�

The dad has not met Madonna, but he was told his son — who he could not afford to bring up — was being adopted by a “famous US musician�.

He said: “I know he will be very happy in America. We are told David will be coming back regularly to know his roots.�

Now, Henderson Geza Dyedyereke, the headman of Lipunga, a village near the Zambian border, confirms pop star Madonna is adopting a one-year-old African boy. Henderson Geza Dyedyereke says he was informed of the adoption by Rev. Thomson Chipeta, the executive director of the Home of Hope Orphan Care Center in Mchinji, where the boy is being cared for reports Reuters.

"Rev. Chipeta came yesterday to inform me about the child David Banda who is 12 months," Dyedyereke told Reuters, adding Banda's father had told him two months ago that the adoption process was under way.

"The father told me that the child was going to America," he said.

Madonna's U.S.-based spokeswoman, Liz Rosenberg, said in an email: "Current legal issues regarding an adoption prevent me from making any official statement. I have been advised by lawyers to say nothing at this time."

A spokeswoman for the singer in London said: "We may have an official statement within 48 hours."