How religious, ethnic bigotry affected Akinyemi Samson

A lot of Nigerians have suffered untold hardships as a result of religious, ethnic, cultural and even traditional differences for which the helpless ones either get killed, maimed, jailed or sometimes sent on exile.

Some of the lucky ones manage to escape to other lands, and some even outside the shores of the country.

Anale Emmanuel Shoaga and her husband to be, Samson Akinyemi, fall in the later category. They were victims of molestation and harassment perpetrated by some Muslim fundamentalists in Ikotun, a suburb of Lagos, led by one Alhaji Arowoshafe, her purported stepfather.

On November 2, 2013, seven days after their wedding introduction to start a beautiful life on October 26, 2013, Arowoshafe stopped at nothing to torment his stepdaughter and her fiancé, Akinyemi to the extreme.

Arowoshafe had on several occasions attempted to rape Anale but failed and no one would have thought that Anale’s wedding introduction did not go down well with him.

He had, therefore, planned to forcefully marry out Anale Emmanuel to his old friend. Seven days after the introduction, Arowoshafe subtly invited Anale who had started living with Akinyemi for a courtesy visit with a view to having an opportunity to see her mother who was visually challenged at the time.

Unknown to her, the stepfather had set up his plans to abduct Anale. To cut the very long story short, after being hypothesised she found herself half naked, molested, injured and raped when she regained consciousness.

Thereafter, even after regaining herself consciousness, she was at the mercy of her abductors and Arowoshafe’s business partner, who she met some months ago, who turned her into a sex-slave raping her at will both in the morning, afternoon, evening midnight.

He also intimidated her to stupor but four days later, she became more conscious and bold enough to escape. After her escape, she came in contact with a woman who helped her to get across to Samson Akinyemi through telephone.

Akinyemi, who immediately came for Anale took her into hiding in Ayobo Aiyetoro where they lived in perpetual fear and imminent danger.

Thereafter, another woman who heard about the Akinyemis ordeal contacted another good Nigerian, who promised helping them to travel to Libya and from where they promised to brave it to safety. All these happened after their wedding introduction on October 26, 2013

This story was told by one of the women who helped Anale after her escape from her abductors. The story of Anale and Akinyemi who were forced to flee the country for fear of persecution, and published in December 2013, is still fresh.

“We urge the Federal Government of Nigeria and the United Nations to take decisive steps to put an end to the menace and ugly situation before it gets worse and consume the nation,” the woman, who identified herself as Beatrice Suleiman, told The Guardian.