Ok..i am not really good at linking stuff, so I have just lifted the whole story from guardian…nice!
LENE Kamm came to Lagos from Denmark last week to attend a conference. But she used the opportunity to search for her father, Emmanuel Owhin whom her Danish mother, Else Gyring Nielsen said is a Nigerian. Born in Denmark in 1957, Lene’s story was published last Saturday in The Guardian. But as it turned out, her father died in 1982.
However, she didn’t come in vain for she was able to unite with her half brothers and sister as well as other members of the family who read her story in The Guardian. The reunion was made possible through the effort of her half sister, Sarah Owhin who returned from London a day after the publication oblivious of it all.
Sarah, 35, recalled that her phone kept ringing around 8 pm last Saturday but she initially ignored it because she didn’t want to be disturbed at that hour of the day. Besides she had just returned from London.
Unknown to her, it was one of her friends, Austin Eni Okojie calling all the way from Abuja. Her mother, Josephine Owhin, urged her on to pick her phone and answer her caller. She eventually did so in disguise. The dialogue, according to Sarah, went thus:
“Can I speak to Sarah?”, asked Okojie.
“No, Sarah is not around; she’s in London. It is Esther her daughter,” she replied.
“Please call Sarah in London and tell her that one of her sisters from Denmark is looking for her father Emmanuel Owhin and wants to meet with his children or relatives.”
“How did you get to know about it,?”
“The story is in The Guardian of today”
She thanked him and pondered in her mind who this person could be. For Sarah, a graduate of Ondo State University who is now based in London, the next step was how to locate Lene in Lagos. She contacted The Guardian to make enquiries.
She was eventually taken to meet Lene with her mother Josephine at the head office of Support A Child, organisers of the workshop that brought Lene to Nigeria, at Victoria Island. There, she was interrogated by Mrs. Abisola Williams, mother of Olatoun Williams, organizer of the workshop.
Sarah’s mother explained that Emmanuel Owhin was her husband and that they met while she was working with the Pilgrimage Board in Lagos and he Owhin was managing director of his company, Fountain Services, an advertising and publishing company based in Ebute-Metta, Lagos in 1968. She explained that her husband was a freelance advertiser with Daily Times at that time. She later tied the nuptial knots with him and the union is blessed with three children: Sarah, Emmanuel (Jnr) and Samson.
Mrs. Williams called people such as Prince Tony Momoh, former minister of information and one time editor of Daily Times to confirm the authenticity of the story. She also called Jane Ejueyitchie-Oroye, a former principal of Oueen’s College Lagos and an Itsekiri woman to ascertain whether she knew anyone called Emmanuel Owhin. She discovered that Emmanuel Owhin’s grandmother was an Itsekiri woman and she lived and died in Lagos.
Linkage confirmed, Olatoun Williams came to take Sarah and her mother to meet Lene who was staying at an hotel in Ikoyi. On sighting her sister, Lene broke into tears. She was consoled by Sarah who said: “God just decided to unite you with your family, since you have been nice to many people helping them to reunite with their families. You don’t need to cry.”
From there, Lene was taken to the family house in Mushin. There, she took so many pictures and met some other of her relatives. Later in the day, her brother, Mark Owhin who had just come from the United Kingdom was hinted about the story and initially he could not believe it. Mark, who was born in 1962, is an engineer based in the UK. He also came to the hotel to be united with Lene. But he forgot his glasses in his car parked outside the hotel. So his sister, Lene, who also equally uses glasses, gave him her glasses for him to read her story in The Guardian.
“I am happy to meet my sister. We are going to keep in touch. We are going to be exchanging letters and we look forward to more good things to come,” he enthused.
Lene is happy that her colleagues from Denmark have already found some resemblance in her and her Sarah. Lene reached her children in Demark and they had a live communication with her brother. Her son, Jens, a lawyer, was very happy that at last, his mother has discovered her roots.
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