Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi’s elder sister, Princess Folashade Ogunwusi-Fadairo has revealed that the traditional ruler has never been a believer in polygamy.
Oba Adeyeye is married to six women, five of whom he tied the knot in 2022.
Princess Folashade explained during an interview with The Punch that circumstances forced her brother to take more wives.
She stated it was not her place to interfere with the monarch’s choice to accept polygamy against his personal conviction, but she realizes it must have been difficult for him to do so.
In her words;
“My opinion is that what you have to do, you just have to do it. Meanwhile, that’s his personal life, I can’t meddle in it. What I can say is that I don’t know if you were there during his wedding anniversary or so, if you heard the speech he made, it was very touching and it was something that personally he didn’t like but he had no choice, he had to do it. Where the Yoruba are coming from, polygamy is expected. And being the progenitor of the Yoruba race, inu e ni won bi wa si (we were born in it). For instance, my grandfather had eight wives, that’s paternal and my maternal grandfather had about seven or eight wives too. So, it’s something he had to do, although, I think he avoided it.”
