By Ademola Adegbamigbe
It was at James
• Ritual killing suspectS arrested in Oyo State, Alfa Gbolagade Dauda and his men.
Ajayi Crescent in Isheri, a suburb of Lagos, in February this year. At one of the numerous privately dug wells where submersible machines pump water to overhead tanks for sale, a man appeared as if he wanted to fetch some water.
The street is inhabited also by nationals of Togo, Ghana and some other West African countries, who roast groundnuts for sale to people whose take home pays could not take them to the bus stops. Two children of Hausa settlers in the area were playing hide and seek nearby, a game that intermittently took them off the busy thoroughfare.
The man who came pretending to be interested in fetching water had been watching the children with the leer of an accomplished thief. After waiting patiently for a while, an evil spirit, perhaps, suddenly possessed him. He grabbed the younger of the two kids, put him in his bucket and balanced it on his head.
But while the boy in the bucket was struggling, causing the container on the man’s head to shake, his elder brother kept shouting, inviting passers-by to help rescue his younger one who was in the bucket. “This man is not carrying water in that container,” the boy screamed, panted and pointed. He added: “It is my younger brother that this man is carrying.”
When he persisted, inhabitants of the street decided to intervene. They ordered the man to put down the receptacle on his head. Pronto! the boy was let out of the bucket. Were it not for the intervention of cops from Isheri Police Station, the kidnapper would have been lynched by the mob.
However, Abiodun Lekuti, a 68-year-old man who was declared missing in Epe since 7 February, was not that lucky. Before leaving home that day, he informed his wife that he was going to pray with a colleague of his. But the wife’s hope of her husband’s return started feeding on itself. When the wife eventually set eyes on her husband, it was his corpse. Most disastrous was the fact that the head, hands and the private organs of Lekuti had been cut off by suspected ritualists. The corpse was recovered in Owode, near Ogombo, Eti-Osa Local Government Area of Lagos State. As Miss Muyinat Abiodun, daughter of the deceased explained to the News Agency of Nigeria, the other parts of her father’s body were “concealed in a sack and buried.”
What is even more painful about Lekuti’s death was that one of his assailants, Mr. Teju Raji, was his son-in-law. Lekuti’s trouble started when he visited Raji to help him resolve a land dispute. Lekuti who was popularly called Baba Saheed, had stood as guarantor to a business associate of his who bought a plot of land. The land buyer paid Lekuti N30,000 for signing documents related to the sale of the land. The former, however, changed his mind on the deal. He demanded for a refund but this was not without controversy. Instead of N30,000, he suddenly demanded N60,000. But Lekuti had already spent the money.
It was against this background that he approached Raji for assistance. He wanted Raji to pray for him. Raji quickly recruited Saheed Animashaun and one other alfa (Muslim cleric), who was at large at press time, to do the job. When Lekuti arrived at Animashaun’s Ajah office, the duo of Raji and Animashaun butchered him. His head, genitals and hands were stored in a greasy concoction while the remaining parts of his body were buried. The ritualists have been arrested.
Parading the suspects before newsmen in Lagos, the Lagos State Police Commissioner, Alhaji Mohammed Abubakar, said his men acted on a tip-off to arrest them. Both men confessed to having committed the crime. Meanwhile, the police were able to exhume Lekuti’s remains.
In recent times, cases of ritual killing have been increasing. And the dark spots to be avoided or where one must be careful are: Otta, Olambe, Ibafo, Mowe (all in Ogun State), Ikorodu, MKO Abiola Gardens, Ikeja; Otedola Estate Bridge, Isheri/Olowo Ira under bridge, and Toyota Bus Stop on the Apapa/Oshodi Expressway (all in Lagos). Others are the Waterfront area of Onitsha, Anambra State; Isiala Ngwa in Abia State; Igwurita, Muruokoro, in Port Harcourt; Ilorin/Oro Road in Kwara State, Lokoja-Abuja highway in Kogi State, Kaduna Eastern by-pass, River Kaduna, Kaduna/Abuja Expressway, Abuja Motor Park and Kawo Motor Park, all in Kaduna.
Critics keep wondering why in the 21st century, when citizens of other countries are experimenting with genetically modified food, cloning, aeronautic engineering, gas-propelled vehicles, ethanol fuel, internet, solar energy and how to reverse global warming, some Nigerians still indulge in the superstitious process of ritual murder.
Leo Igwe, head of the Skeptics Society, in an essay, “Ritual killing and Pseudoscience in Nigeria,” puts forward three reasons: religion, superstition and poverty. With regard to religion, Igwe posits that Nigerians, being religious people, believe in the existence of supernatural beings and that these transcendental entities can be influenced through ritual acts and sacrifices. “Rituals constitute part of the people’s traditional religious practice and observance. Nigerians engage in ritual acts to appease the gods, seek supernatural favours, or to ward off misfortune. Many do so out of fear or unpleasant spiritual consequences if they default. Religion, theism, supernaturalism, and occultism are at the root of ritual killing in Nigeria,” he wrote.
He also explained that Nigeria is a society where most beliefs are still informed by unreason, dogmas, myth making and magical thinking. In other words, in Nigeria, belief in ghosts, juju, charm and witchcraft is widespread.
Then, Igwe delves into the gory details: “…Nigerians believe that magical portions prepared with human heads, Bosom s, tongues, eyes, and segxwal organs can enhance one’s political and financial fortunes; that juju, charms and amulets can protect individuals against business failures, sickness and diseases, accidents, and spiritual attacks. In fact, ritual-making is perceived as an act of spiritual fortification.”
The writer also links ritual killing in Nigeria with poverty. That is, as he puts it, Nigerians engage in ritual killing for money-making purposes. “Among Nigerians, there is a popular belief in a special kind of ritual, performed with human blood or body parts that can bring money or wealth, even though such belief lacks any basis in reason, science or common sense,” Igwe explained. However, he maintained that there had never been a single proven instance of any Nigerian who became rich through this hideous practice. This notwithstanding, ritual cases abound with poverty as the most prevalent factor.
For instance, earlier this month, a weekly tabloid reported that celebrities and rich men now prefer virgins for their ritualistic purposes. And the methodology is quite simple. The male celebrities are said to employ the services of other young ladies, who help them source for virgins. In the process, the innocent virgins are lured with money and expensive gifts. Once the celebrities have sex with the virgins, the blood and other accompanying fluids are allegedly collected and used for rituals to elongate their lifespan.
This particular method is more common, as virgins are believed to represent freshness, vigour and rejuvenation. The trade is not limited to celebrities. Government officials are also said to be neck-deep in the practice. A particular case is how a South-West politician was allegedly caught performing a ritual by his driver. According to a weekly tabloid, the politician and his driver had travelled out of their state, when the boss suddenly told the driver to pull over.
The highly placed politician reportedly alighted from the vehicle and headed for the nearby bush, with the promise that he would be back in 10 minutes. But after waiting for over 30 minutes, the driver became worried and then decided to go looking for his boss. However, on getting deep into the bush, the driver discovered his boss naked, holding an already dissected day-old baby, whose blood dripped into his mouth. Overwhelmed by the drama, the driver stood transfixed until his boss noticed him.
Sensing there was danger, the politician was said to have warned the driver about running his mouth. For keeping his mouth shut, the driver was generously compensated. However, for fear of reprisal, the driver reportedly related his experience to some friends, including a Lagos-based Pentecostal pastor. Barely two weeks after the incident, the driver died.
In another instance, a popular South-West politician was said to have slept with his daughter to achieve his political ambition. The Yoruba politician, who was a member of the House of Representatives between 1999 and 2003, was said to be desperately poor until his herbalist prescribed incest. Not a few believed that he eventually won his election on the strength of this.
Recently, the police in Oyo State arrested two suspected ritual killers: Musa Dauda and Sango Olojo-Onile. According to the state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Assistant Superintendent of Police Bisi Okuwobi, the suspects would be paraded this week.
Musa was apprehended about 2am on Friday 21 March 2008 by a nightguard, identified as Raji of Ageerun House, Owode, Kisi in Oke Ogun area of the state. While on duty, Raji spotted the suspect on an unregistered motorbike which did not have its headlights on. The guard forced the suspect to stop and conducted a search. What he discovered shocked him: one human skull and two bones suspected to have been obtained from human legs.
During interrogation, Dauda revealed that Alasan Yakasu and Sakulu Kalibasu (Dogo) were his accomplices. He confessed that the human parts were removed from a grave at Ojetete village, Kisi, for money ritual.
In Ibadan, police are still quizzing the second suspect, Sango Olojo-Onile, whose sanity remains a subject of controversy. The police claimed he was faking insanity to escape prosecution. The Divisional Police Officer in charge of the case, Mr. Mohammed Aiki, disclosed that Olojo-Onile who is from Oyagaga Gbenla, Ibadan, and claims to be a Sango priest with special powers to invoke lightning at will, was in the habit of desecrating graves to dig out corpses, chanting incantations to acquire powers, using GSM handsets to contact his accomplices, and speaks flawless English.
Olojo-Onile was arrested on Easter Sunday with the fresh head of a woman, which he had in a black polythene bag stuffed with cotton wool when he boarded a commercial bus. He was said to have run out of luck when observant co-passengers noticed blood dripping from the bag containing the severed head. When the suspect was asked to disembark, the bag reportedly fell from his hand and spilled its strange content. The suspect was mobbed but before he could be lynched, the police arrived and rescued him.
On 9 February, the state Police Command, arrested a Muslim leader, Alhaji Gbolagade Dauda Ileanwo, in Agbaje area of Ibadan. He was caught with three human skulls and charms. The suspect confessed that he had been in the trade, which he learnt from Kwara State, for the past 10 years. Although he claimed to be using the human parts for concoctions to assist sterile women, his accomplice, Saheed Azeez, countered that his boss was into money making rituals. Okuwobi warned parents against allowing their children to wander about carelessly because of ritual killers.
“I want to advise parents to be careful and monitor their children very well. They should not allow their children to go out of their custody. Police cannot do it alone. People need to help us reduce crime in our society. I must say that adults should also be careful because anybody that falls their victim, as long as they can empower and carry the person, he will be kidnapped and have his or her body sold off,” the PPRO warned.
Ilorin, the capital of Kwara State got a fair share of ritualists recently as a three-man gang, led by Kamaru Yusuf, beheaded Omobola Moses for rituals. When he paraded the culprits in the state capital, the state Police Commissioner, Alhaji Audu Abubakar, told reporters that Yusuf led his men to kill Omobola at Ira, a village in Oyun Local Government Area. After the act, Abubakar said the merchants of death took the head of their victim to Saliu Oyewole, a 52-year-old herbalist for a ritual.
Abubakar declared that Yusuf and Oyewole are traders resident in Ondo State. On consultation with the herbalist, Yusuf promised to provide a fresh human head. To meet the request, Yusuf, who is an uncle to Omobola, lured her from her parents, took her into the bush and strangled her. He severed her head which was then taken to the native doctor. But the native doctor rejected the head on the excuse that he had requested for a dry head. The suspects thus had to dump Omobola’s head and body in a forest near Ira town where it was later discovered by detectives.
Two weeks ago, a mob descended on two suspected motorcycle thieves in Akute, Ogun State, and set them ablaze after catching them in the act. But there was a savage twist to the jungle justice when the charred corpses of the thieves were discovered to be headless at dawn.
Fear and disbelief gripped residents of Inyi Enugu-Ezike and environs recently when they discovered an evil forest near the town that served as den for ritual killers and their gory activities. During the search of the hideout of the ritual murderers in the town located in Igbo Eze North Local Government Area of Enugu State, led by Rev. Father John Bosco, fresh and decomposing human parts were found littered all over the evil forest. Some corpses had vital parts missing.
Investigations by this magazine revealed that many of the victims were taken to the forest and butchered by the ritualists who then removed the vital parts needed for money-making rituals. Some prominent citizens of the state and environs are said to be patrons of herbalists and native doctors who perform rituals in the forest.
In a move that spurred national attention to the gruesome activities in Inyi Enugu-Ezike, residents of the town, led by Mrs. Theresa Mary Daya, Mrs. Mary Abugu, Ugwu Stella Chinello, Alomona Agnes and Mrs. Josephine Ogobor, petitioned the state government to take over the large expanse of land belonging to the village shrine, Ogene Mmili. The protesting women, who also demanded that perpetrators of the dastardly acts be punished, stated that they raised an alarm since the efforts of the men have failed.
Curiously, the unsuspecting victims of the ritualists were all females. Their names were given as Miss Eucharia Abugu Eya, 20; Miss Gloria Ugwueke, 35 and one Mrs. Caroline Odo Eje who was said to be a widow with seven children. The victims were said to have been abducted while going about their lawful activities. The choice vital parts of the ritualists are said to be heart, kidney and the private parts. The kidnap and killing of one of the victims, 26-year-old Miss Edith Ijeoma Onu Ossai, TheNEWS gathered, last month led to the insanity of her bereaved mother and sparked a protest by over 3,000 women.
The latest was the death of the traditional ruler of Umuokoro Autonomous Community, Umuogbo Inyi, Igwe Christopher Abugu. According to the villagers, this happened after he asked a mysterious cripple he saw in front of his house along the Enugu-Makurdi Road, Inyi, to leave. A vehicle was said to have crushed the Igwe immediately he left the scene. Until his death, the traditional ruler was cooperating in exposing ritual murderers within his domain. He was part of the team that conducted TheNEWS round the town on investigation.
As a result, Chijioke Ugwu, Chairman of the local council, has vowed that perpetrators of evil acts in the community must be brought to book as soon as possible. “My saddest moment was the killings in Inyi,” he told the magazine in an interview. According to him, the ugly incident is portraying his council in bad light to the outside world. To this end, he has convened a security meeting of the council to tackle the menace with urgency. The divisional police headquarters has been provided with facilities for a round-the-clock patrol of Inyi and environs.
According to him, the police have arrested 11 people in connection with armed robbery, rape and kidnapping in the area. But tracking down ritual killers in the town remains a Herculean task. Investigations at the Homicide Section of the State CID, Enugu showed the arrest of one Chukwudi Odoh, believed to be a buyer of old cooking pots at Obollo Afor in Udenu Local Government Area in the state.
There is another dimension to this development in Anambra State, where men who rape young girls for rituals have become a threat. This has made the Federation of International Women Lawyers, FIDA, Anambra State chapter to raise an alarm.
According to FIDA chairperson, Mrs. Margaret Nwagbo, Onitsha has recorded an alarming increase in segxwal assault on women and minors in recent times, noting that no less than seven cases were recorded in the last three weeks of January this year.
She appealed to the citizens not to send out their children on errand unaccompanied, especially in the night. Nwagbo further advised parents not to cover up such cases. She particularly referred to a four-year-old girl who was raped by a 56-year-old man on the belief that the ritual would “make him complete”. Another girl who was sent on an errand at night in Onitsha was raped by some ritualists in a dark alley.
Though it was widely believed that killing people for ritual hardly happens in Abia State, a recent development has proved it wrong. Ebi Onuoha, a 26-year-old man from Igbere, Bende council area of the state, in a desperate bid to get quick rich, killed his mother for ritual. He was lynched in the commercial city of Aba. It was reported that Ebi went to Nguzu Edda in Ebonyi State where he consulted a herbalist to make charms that would make him become a wealthy man.
Impeccable sources disclosed that the herbalist prescribed that Ebi should kill his mother and excise her sex organs as part of the concoctions for the sudden wealth. Onuoha Elendu, Ebi’s father, unaware of the lurking danger, had travelled home for the burial of his close relation at Igbere. Cashing in on his father’s absence, Ebi connived with his friends and fooled his unsuspecting mother, Kate, into accompanying him on a stroll along a riverbank in the city. On getting there, his friends sprang from the forest, blindfolded and tortured her to death. They cut off her vital organs
Few hours after the woman’s absence from home, some of her children were anxious about her whereabouts, as she was not in the habit of staying out late. Subsequently, they raised alarm. Her husband was contacted on phone and alerted of the sudden disappearance of his wife from their family house at 97 Onyemechi Street, Aba. Friends of the family, relations and residents of the neighbourhood were mobilised to comb the nearby forest in search of the woman. When he was threatened, Ebi, it was gathered, confessed that her remains were hidden at the bank of the Aba river. The team became angry and lynched him. When TheNEWS visited the area, the scene of the crime was deserted, but a few persons living adjacent to the area confirmed the incident and disclosed that the corpses of the mother and son had been buried in Igbere, their hometown.
Similarly, at Omenazu road in Aba, the landlord of a three-storey building was said to have used his two sons for money making rituals after the mother of the two boys fled the matrimonial home for undisclosed reasons. The boys were staying on the third floor of the building.The first and second floors were rented to tenants. It was alleged that the tenants always noticed strange movements by their landlord at nights. Every Friday, the tenants alleged, they usually observed their landlord with a Ghana-must-go bag filled with money. One day, a member of a Pentecostal church started praying against the nightmares and God, it was reported, revealed to him the secret about their landlord.
On a tip off, the police invited the landlord for interrogation. In fear, the suspect fled, forcing the police to swoop on the building and, according to the people, the cops discovered the sons of the landlord, vomiting N1,000 notes that filled the rooms.
Last September, a lady was found butchered in the car of an Abuja-based businessman, Uba Abdullahi. The accused was arrested by policemen on patrol when he was cleaning the bloodstains on the back seat of his Honda Accord wagon car marked AG 847 SUL. Though the circumstances that led to the death of the lady remain a mystery till date, homicide detectives said their investigations revealed that the businessman killed the lady who was later identified as Miss Mary Danladi after having sex with her at one of the popular gardens in the Federal Capital Territory. According to the police, Abdullahi confessed that he used a knife to cut the throat of his victim. The accused added that he later dumped the lifeless body in a farm located behind a popular supermarket at Area 11 area of Abuja. The police, however, take the suspect’s story about the identity and circumstances that led to the death of the lady with a pinch of salt.
The police told journalists that their investigations revealed that the deceased, who they described as a fashion designer, had attended a church service at Jabi, after which she was picked up by the accused who later slaughtered her. Abdullahi said he picked up the late Mary close to the popular Rita Lori Hotel at about12.30 am on the fateful day. According to him, the price of sex was the cause of disagreement that eventually led to Mary’s death. He said the alleged call girl reneged on the initial agreed price of N1,000 when they got to where they were to have sex. “When we got there, I brought out a bundle of money amounting to about N10,000 and paid her the sum of N1000, which we had initially agreed for short time sex. When she saw the money, she said she would no longer collect N1,000, that I should pay her N1,500, which I did. Again, she increased the money to N2,000, and I became angry. So, we started struggling inside my car, and she died in the process,” Abdullahi claimed.
Abdullahi first told the police that what he was cleaning from his car was zobo, a crimson-coloured local drink. But the suspect confessed after further interrogation and led detectives to where he had dumped the corpse.
The Inspector-General of Police, Mike Okiro, was however, emphatic that Abdullahi is a ritualist. “The man is a killer. He is a ritualist. The uncle to the deceased had come to say that the girl is not a prostitute. That she was sent on an errand and never returned. We don’t know how and where the Alhaji carried her. But all these stories he is telling about bargaining for money for sex are all lies. It’s just an attempt to cover up,” the IGP who warned members of the public, especially females, against accepting offer of lift from unknown persons, told journalists.
In the same vein, residents of FCT were given a foul New Year gift on 1 January 2008, with the report of the gruesome murder of one Mrs Stella Iloduba, a staff of Nigeria Investment Promotion Council, NIPC, by her husband, Uche, two months after their wedding. The decomposing body of the deceased was discovered at the couple’s apartment few days after by her brother, James Ubi.
But the self-acclaimed husband/prophet had disappeared, raising suspicion that he may have had a hand in the murder. He was subsequently declared wanted by the FCT Police Command. Prophet Iloduba was arrested in Kogi State about two weeks after. Ironically, the prophet, who claimed to have authored over 300 books, not only confessed to killing his wife with a hammer and cutlass, he told journalists that he was ready to commit the same act again.
Iloduba said he killed his wife in self-defence, as he saw the deceased trying to strangle him in a dream. He said members of his family, who he described as cultists, had set his wife against him. The prophet said this was revealed to him in a dream. “The issue of killing my wife began from our families who are cultists. They set her against me. I saw her in my dream; she was struggling to kill me. I woke up and the environment was charged. ‘This is Satan,’ I said to myself, and I began to struggle with her in self defence. I went out and got a rope, overpowered her, tied her down and killed her with this hammer and cutlass,” he said, pointing to the two objects. “There was satanic power around us when the incident happened. This incident happened because of my occultic mother,” the prophet added.
In Kaduna, this magazine gathered that the spate of ritual killing has been brought under control by the massive security surveillance mounted across the state by the police.
The last recorded case was in January 2007, when three youths lured one Ibrahim Shehu, a 17-year-old sugarcane hawker, to the outskirts of a village and strangled him. According to the Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, Aminu Lawan, the youths were trying to remove his eyes when they were discovered by a farmer who called the attention of residents of the nearby village. The three youths were nabbed and handed over to the police.
To forestall any recurrence, the police said it decided to make arrangements to mount 24-hour surveillance in areas like the Kaduna Eastern by-pass, River Kaduna, Kaduna/Abuja Expressway, Abuja Motor Park, Kawo Motor Park and other areas where acts like ritual killing and other criminal activities could occur.
Ibafo, a community between Ogun and Lagos states, is also a den of ritual killers. On 24 August 2007, a woman, whose identity was kept secret by the police, ran to some residents of the community with tales that she had just managed to escape from a kidnappers’ den. Spurred by the spine-chilling account, the residents, led by one Charles Ogbeide, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, stormed the hide-out. To their utter dismay they found an Okija-like shrine which housed different images and sundry sacrificial items.
Though the residents went after the alleged kidnappers, their search was to no avail. They only discovered several other minor shrines, and four men were found in one of them. Two of those men were later apprehended and taken into police custody.
The major shrine which led to the discovery of the minor ones consisted of two buildings. On the floor at the entrance of the first building were two short lines of cowries. To enter the shrine, one must unavoidably step on them. Inside was a carved image of a snarling lion’s head. The lion’s head was decorated with sundry objects including cowries, cudgels, and different articles wrapped in pieces of cloth presumably soaked in sacrificial liquids. On the floor were white pieces of cloth stained with what appeared to be blood.
In the rectangular building, each of the five rooms, except one, had at least one carved image surrounded by bottles of Aromatic Schnapps. There are other items such as red oil, liquid containers–both grass and plastic bottles–clothes, especially white wrappers, and two travel bags with unknown contents.
In the room without any of the carved images was what looks like an opening to an cellar. A tap on the floor created a hollow sound, which tends to support that notion. Further investigations conducted by this magazine revealed that certain residents in the community, including some members of the village’s traditional council, may be aware of the activities of the suspected ritualists.
This magazine also gathered that before the recent discovery, some concerned members of the community had raised an alarm over the presence of certain strange people who usually trooped into the village at odd hours, especially when most villagers would have gone to their various places of work. The visitors always came in luxury cars between 7pm and 11pm.
Indeed, there are many reasons to assume that certain influential members of the community were involved in whatever was going on. The whereabouts of one Success, suspected to be working in concert with the alleged kidnappers, is still unknown. Apart from Success, who appeared to be the group’s pointsman, there are indications that some members of the traditional council may also have been in the know.
Cases of ritual killings have been prevalent in Oju local council of Benue State. On 10 August 2007, a 75-year-old woman, Iyayi Akata was killed, while three others–Alile Omerigbe, Ohie Odogobi and Ijogo Onah–were seriously injured in two separate attacks on a farm.
Akata had her vital organs removed. Her companion, Onah, who escaped death by the whiskers, told a gory story of how the old woman was killed and how she herself suffered a deep machete cut.
The search party sent to recover the body of the slain woman was confounded when two other women, Alile Omerigbe and Ohie Odogobi from the neighbouring community of Ohoho, were found by the roadside. The bloodied women had managed to crawl to safety after villagers scared away the suspected ritualists who were at the point of killing them.
The victims said they were clearing land for their Sesame seed farm when two men, described by Alile as “young and energetic”, attacked them. She had one of her fingers cut off and sustained machete cuts on other fingers. Odogobi was luckier, as no part of her body was cut off. But the scar on her neck showed how narrowly she had cheated death. The killers meant to decapitate her but she blocked the blow with her hands.
The survivors from the attack were still receiving treatment at the General Hospital, Oju, when another attack was launched at Odaleko, a sleepy community along Ikachi-Adum Road, on the same day. Their target, this time, was 77-year-old Madam Adiya Omachi.
Adiya was on her farm when an assailant suddenly grabbed her from behind and threw her to the ground, pinning her with his knees. According to Adiya, the person removed her wrapper from her waist, used it to blindfold her and thereafter started slashing at her private part. The attacker, however, abandoned the old woman and ran away on hearing the sound of an approaching motorcycle. She was later found drenched in blood and rushed to the hospital for treatment.
These attacks are clear signals that ritual killers are after the lives of the women in Oju local government council. The marauders seem not to be deterred by the outcry generated by their nefarious activities. Almost on a weekly basis, women are either attacked on their farms or given a hot chase by the unidentified killers.
The most celebrated ritual killing in the recent past was the notorious Otokoto saga in Owerri, Imo State where a businessman belonging to a cult used his apprentice for ritual. The boy’s corpse was later exhumed at the premises of Otokoto Hotel. Members of various secret societies, politicians, businessmen and native doctors are usually the brains behind ritual killings. It has also been reported that there are markets where human flesh is sold with impunity across the country. The magazine gathered that security agencies cannot deny knowledge of the alleged markets littered across the land. Another security report indicated that most ritual killing kingpins are usually the high and mighty, nay ,the untouchables in the society.
Unfortunately, most perpetrators of the dastardly act are rarely punished by the law due to the rigorous process required to prove beyond reasonable doubt. Moreso, the court of law does not recognise the existence of charms as it is alien to the English from who Nigerians borrowed their judicial system. For example, in 2004, there was a case of one Sabo Mohammed who plucked the eyes of an 11-year-old Isa Babaji with the aim of using them to have a disappearing charm prepared for him for a token N100 by the son of a native doctor in Yauteke, Darazo Local Government Area of Bauchi State. In fact, there is no state in Nigeria where ritual killing is more widespread than Bauchi. Police records attest to it, and it is a major problem confronting the administration of Isa Yuguda.
It was only in 2001 that instant justice by way of public murder was meted out to a famous preacher-cum medicine man, the late Eddy Okeke a.k.a. Eddy Nawgu by the Bakassi vigilance group in Onitsha, Anambra State for allegedly using children to prepare rituals for the high and mighty in the society.
Commenting of the issue, DSP Linus Nwaiwu, Police Public Relations Officer, Imo State Command told TheNEWS that it had not received any complaint of ritual killing in the state since he assumed duty. He, however, confirmed that women and children were normally the targets, especially underaged hawkers. According to him, people should be wary of strangers showing unnecessary kindness to them. He also urged people not to be careless with strangers. He noted that commercial sex workers also fall victim with ease when they are enticed with lots of money.
Investigations revealed that the killers strike mainly at bush paths, markets, lonely environments, hotels and brothels, popular bus stopovers or terminals, and hot spots across the country. People are advised not to travel long distances alone but in company of others.They should also desist from using short-cuts or pathways at odd hours.
Will the federal, state and the local governments do something about this menace? That is the question Nigerians are
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