Information has emerged about a couple from Usi-Ekiti in Ido/Osi Local Government Area of Ekiti State who recently went public accusing their relatives of plotting to circumcise their 5-year-old daughter.
It would be recalled that Miss Olufunke Oyenekan and her fiance, Emmanuel Olaoye( a scion of the royal Olaoyes family) who have two children recently granted a national newspaper interview where the live-in-lovers claimed that the hubby’s relations were hell bent on circumcising their 5-year-old daughter (pictured with her mum).
Emmanuel said in the interview: “My fiancée, Olu¬funke Oyenekan and I met in February14,2006 and we love each other but haven’t mar¬ried legally. We were cohabiting and eventually had two kids. A boy and a girl.
“Things went on smooth¬ly between us till I lost my father who was a traditional ruler in Ushi Ekiti, my home town. I received the message of the death of our royal father and was told I had been picked as his successor. So, I went home for the burial rites and took my wife-to-be and our children with me, actually to ensure that my extended family get to know her. We travelled to Ushi Ekiti in January 1,2012.
“However, we didn’t know that a shocker was awaiting us at Ushi-Ekiti. My family demanded that we submit our children for circumcision rites.
“Funke, my wife-to-be, didn’t like this arrangement at all. She didn’t particularly want our daughter, who was then two years and four months old to be circumcised as she said she didn’t like what she experience as a woman who was circumcised by her parents when she was young.
“But my people won’t be persuaded to spare our daughter of the treatment because our tradition forbids any of our blood not being administered the circumcision rites.
“My fiancée has since fled with our daughter since the disagreement in Ushi-Ekiti. As I’m going to succeed my late father as the traditional ruler of our town, it becomes more mandatory for my children to be circumcised. Here in our land, it is part of the prerequisites of a king-to-be to have all his children circumcised. We really do not have a choice here. But my fiancee sees the practice as barbaric and outdated. She won’t have any of it for our daughter.
“That is why she ran away with our daughter. Our son has also joined her where she is. I want to believe her people arranged her escape and know her whereabouts but they are claiming ignorance of it. We once heard she was in a pastor’s custody in one Bethel Love Church in Abeokuta, Ogun State. My people went there but she escaped from them and fled to an unknown place with the children and hasn’t been seen since then. I’m just confused about the whole development.“
However, investigation by OrijoReporter has revealed that Olufunke and her children have been living in United States with tourist visa for about six months. It was reliably gathered that they recently applied for lawful permanent residence (a “green card”) on asylum ground.
OrijoReporter was told that the material information on their application was the fabricated circumcision story and the purported claim that they feared persecution in Nigeria based on their view.
An immigration benefit, asylum allows certain foreign nationals who fear persecution to remain lawfully in the U.S. indefinitely. It was said that the couple’s interview, which is on the net is to validate the falsified information so that they will be granted asylum.
