…warns him to return home with his daughter for rites to avoid dire consequences
The head of the Adenuga family, Pa Adelakun Adenuga, has insisted that the family has disowned and declared wanted one of their sons, Mr Adedayo Adenuga, for preventing his daughter from being circumcised in line with the tradition of the family.
Pa Adenuga spoke while responding to reports in different newspapers that the family had disowned and declared wanted Mr Adedayo Adenuga for not submitting his daughter for the circumcision rites and tradition in the family.
The family recently announced its decision to disown and declare Adedayo Adenuga wanted for disappearing with his daughter and wife in order not to make his daughter available for the circumcision rites.
Pa Adelakun Adedayo said Adedayo Adenuga is his nephew, expressing surprise that he could defy and disrespect the elders of the family over their insistence on the observance of the age-long family tradition of circumcising every female child born to members of the family.
The family head noted that Adedayo Adenuga was not the first member of the family whose daughter would be circumcised in line with the family tradition and rites.
Pa Adelakun Adedayo said, “We just wonder why Adedayo Adenuga has behaved the way he has done by running away with his daughter and wife to prevent our family from carrying out the circumcision rites on the girl, a tradition we’ve been practising for many many years as handed over to us by our ancestors. Even all of Adedayo Adenuga’s sisters went through the rites when they were born.
“But maybe due to his own education and exposure to Western ways of life, he now sees nothing good in our age-long traditional rites. But should we blame his father and our family for sending him to school to acquire Western education?
“We are giving him ultimatum to retrace his steps by returning home from anywhere he has run to with his family. They must return to perform the circumcision rites according to the tradition of our family. This tradition has been practised in our family over thousands of years.”
The family head further stated, “We usually do the circumcision rites secretly such that only our family members know what it entails and it’s surprising that our son, Adedayo Adenuga has exposed us and escalated it to the whole world now. We’re saddened by his attitude.
“The way and manner Adedayo Adenuga behaved gave us the feelings that he’s a bastard and if he fails to turn in himself and his daughter for the circumcision rites in time, we’ll uproot him totally from being a member of our family by further disowning him in every way and manner we know.
“Whether he likes it or not, even if he’s on the run for a hundred years, our family tradition will take its course and we’ll impose heavier sanctions on him.
“For your information, over this matter, we have had to call a general family meeting to appease all our ancestors like Egungun, Sango and others not to go against us or visit calamities on the entire family over Adedayo’s insubordination.”