Elders of the Adedayo Oluwole Adenuga family of Ijebu, Ogun State have declared one of their sons, Adedayo Oluwole Adenuga and his immediate family members wanted for preventing them from carrying out circumcision rites, now known as Female Genital Multilation, on his daughter and escaping from the community with both his wife and daughter.
It was also gathered that the elders ordered some youths in the family to remove the roof of the house inherited by Adedayo Oluwole Adenuga from his late father, as a way of telling him that he would never forgiven and would surely be dealt with whenever he is caught for trying to evade the age-long family tradition.
A brother to Adedayo Oluwole Adenuga, who pleaded anonymity disclosed this development to our reporter.
According to the brother , Adedayo Oluwole Adenuga was forced to leave Nigeria along with his immediate family members to protect his daughter from the elders in the family who have insisted that Adedayo’s daughter must be circumcisised according to the family tradition.
Due to the inability of the elders to locate Adedayo, his wife and daughter some years ago, the elders were said to have declared them missing and wanted.
Adenuga’s brother who spoke with our Correspondent explained how he equally lost a daughter to this forced circumcision rites of the family some years back.
He said circumcision of every female child in the family is compulsory as laid down by their progenitors and it is believed to be one rite that must be done to ward off all manners of calamities in the family.
He said it does not matter if the parent of the female child consent to it or not, the family elders must carry out the genital mutilation while anyone who refused to be part of this age long tradition would not only lose all his or her inheritance in the family but also have the elders to contend with until they have their way.
“I lost my second child on November 10, 2004 to this same procedure due to the excessive pain, bleeding and the infection suffered by my daughter, it was a painful period to me and my wife . But there’s nothing we could do, we couldn’t say the elders who performed the circumcision rites on her were the one responsible . We just have to take the painful and unfortunate death of our daughter as our own fate.”
He has however appealed to government at all levels as well as Non-Governmental Organisation in Nigeria to urgently intervene and help to stop the continued perpetration of FGM by family elders under the guise of carrying out circumcision rites on female children.
He added that it’s unfortunate that his brother would be denied his benefits and freedom to live in any part of the country following the declaration by the family elders as a wanted person along with his wife and daughter over this babaric act without the relevant authorities taking urgent action against the perpetrators.
Report has it that about 20 million Nigerian women and girls had undergone FGM which sometimes results in premature death or leave many females physically and emotionally damaged.
Everyday in many parts of Nigeria, tales abound of the many girls and women forced to undergo FGM.
UNICEF has warned that FGM is on the rise among Nigerian girls aged 0—14.
Nigeria, due to her large population is said to be having the highest number of FGM.