- ‘Police only gave us pictures showing injuries Shola sustained during the incident
- Please, return home, family head pleads
If a couple, Mr. and Mrs. Kunle Akinyemi, had had the premonition that abandoning their family’s Islamic religion for Christianity would cost them their lives, maybe they would have had a complete rethink.
But despite their extended family’s disapproval of their decision to convert to Christianity, the couple ignored all warnings from their relations and started worshiping in a church, Glory Place Church in Kaura Local Government Area of Kaduna State.
It was gathered that the couple and their children had moved to Kaduna from Lagos, where they were based, after Mr. Akinyemi was transferred by his employers to one of their branches in Kaduna. The family had settled in Ataka community in Kaura Local Government Area of the state.
When the couple decided to convert to Christianity during their sojourn in the Northern state, some of their extended family members, who also lived in Kaduna, were said to have warned them against the decision, saying no member of the lineage had ever abandoned Islam for another religion.
In early 2013, Kunle Akinyemi and his wife, Muyibatu, were said to have begun to worship in a church. Their first child, Shola Akinyemi, also joined his parents in the practice of their new religion of Christianity.
Speaking with our correspondent in Osogbo, the head of the Akinyemi family, Pa. Lagunju Ahmed, explained that other members of the family were embarrassed when they discovered that Akinyemi and his nuclear family had finally converted to Christianity, notwithstanding the extended family’s disapproval.
Ahmed said that the family members had earlier met and decided that Akinyemi and his wife would be banished from the community as punishment for flouting their order not to go against the family tradition.
After the Akinyemis were attacked and chased away from their house by some of their relations and other Muslim faithful in the community, Pa. Ahmed disclosed that it was the pastor in charge of Akinyemi’s church, Joseph Akintunde, who came to their rescue and accommodated them in his house.
Pa. Ahmed added that the angry relations persisted and later attacked Akinyemi and his family members in the pastor’s house, after they returned from church one Sunday afternoon.
He said that Kunle Akinyemi and his wife, Muyibatu, were killed during the attack while their son, Shola, escaped with severe injuries.
According to Pa. Ahmed, since the killing of Shola’s parents in April 2013, the family had been searching for him (Shola) and had to declare him wanted.
Ahmed explained, “Kunle Akinyemi, the father of Shola and members of his immediate family were born into Islam and had been practising it until he (Kunle) took that strange decision to abandon our religion (Islam).
“Kunle Akinyemi converted to Christianity and the decision really upset the rest of the extended family members and they ganged up against him and plotted among themselves to chase Kunle and his nuclear family away from the community.
“Before we knew what was happening, this move snowballed into a bigger crisis and extended to other Muslim brothers with many of them supporting the banishment of Kunle Akinyemi, his wife and children, while a few others opposed the idea.
“In 2013, on a Sunday afternoon at about 1.45pm, some people suspected to be members of the Muslim community in the area (Ataka community in Kaduna) came and chased Kunle Akinyemi and members of his family away.
“During the attack, some people were injured and hospitalised. After this incident, the cleric in charge of the church the Akinyemis were attending, Pastor Joseph Akintunde of Glory Place Church, took Kunle and members of his family to the church and accommodated them because those who attacked them in their previous home, were still on their trail.”
The family head further explained, “Pastor Akintunde later got a job for Shola Akinyemi in March, 2013 in Kaura Local Government Area of Kaduna. We suspected those members of our family that instigated the first attack got wind of the whereabouts of Shola and his parents. I am sure those members of our family must have sent some Fulani people that attacked Ataka community on April 2, 2013.
“During that attack, our son, Kunle Akinyemi and his wife, Muyibatu Akinyemi, who were parents of Shola Akinyemi, were killed, but we were told that Shola, their son, escaped. We learnt that he was seriously injured, but was rescued. But since then, no one knows the whereabouts of the boy (Shola). Shola was born about 30 years ago.
“From the documents I later got, Shola, after escaping from the scene, where his parents were killed, reported the matter to the police in Kaduna. But no one was arrested, to the best of my knowledge. In fact, his picture, showing him with bruises all over his body, was taken and we got it from the police.”
But another relation of the late Kunle Akinyemi, who was in company with the head of the family, Mr. Oseni Akinyemi, blamed the deceased for his death. He said that the family had warned him against converting to Christianity, but he remained adamant.
Oseni, who was apparently angry over the deceased’s action, said, “Kunle brought shame on our family by abandoning our
religion.”
He, however, asked the deceased couple’s surviving child, Shola, to return to the family, saying, “We (family) have intelligence reports that he (Shola) is somewhere around Osun State. For abandoning the religion of our father, his father’s offence has put Shola, too, in trouble. He should come out and stop stressing us. I am formally declaring him wanted for bringing shame on us as a family with a rich history.”
Similarly, Pa Ahmed lamented the disappearance of Shola since the incident and called on Nigerians to assist the family with information that could lead to unravelling his whereabouts.
