Scared Villagers In Edo Community Flee As Abductions and Ritual Killings Take Over "Evil Forest"

“One day, I was coming back from work, I saw somebody crying and shouting armed robber, armed robber, I saw him crawling from a bush part and I went to help him. On getting there, I started tracing the bush part to see whether I can trace the armed robbers, but I started seeing human skulls and skeletons in the bush.”

“I saw children clothes and shoes in the bush. I was shocked and I carried the victim to the main road where people came to help. But that was when I knew something was going on in that forest. This incident happened early 2017.
 
“Then last week, I was in my store when a commercial motor-cyclist rode to the place and said that they killed somebody in the forest. He said we should go there. When we got there, we met our vigilante people there and I asked them about the incident.

“We saw the entire community there. They said I should look by my right hand and I looked. Behold I saw a dead man whose hands were tied on his back has two legs tied too. The body was started decomposing. I was shocked.

“But I observed that there was one motorcyclist that they beat up and wanted to kill before the police came to rescue him. Other motorcyclists were accusing that boy of the killing. Many Okada riders know this particular guy, he uses different motorcycles every day and that was when they started suspecting him.

“They said he will lure his fellow Okada people to the forest, kill them and collect their motorcycle. They said they wanted to kill the boy, but the police said no that he should not be killed. I heard that the boy even confessed to the Okada people that he has killed about 16 persons in this forest. But the police took the boy away and that was the end we heard about him,” he said.
 
SOS to Gov Obaseki, Oba of Benin
 
His words: “The truth is that because the land now belongs to Air Force, nobody goes there and the place became a thick forest. Air force should come and develop that land because it has turned to an evil forest. The land is known as Air Force land,   but the truth now is that it is Air Force Cemetery due to the killings that goes on in that forest.  “

“I am happy you went there, you saw human skeletons, human clothes with blood. We are appealing to our Oba and the Edo state government to come to our aid and save us. People come there to kill people for rituals. They should show concern to this community by saving us. And they should ask Ogida Police the whereabouts of the boy they arrested.

“We have stopped passing the road across the forest because there was a time we saw a J5 bus, we only saw that the doors of the bus were open but nobody inside. The vehicle was abandoned there and after few days, we noticed a grave in that area. Due to the fear, our people stopped passing through that road,”h

“If you notice, our people have fled this community. Our appeal is that Governor Godwin Obaseki promised to give our youth work, and there is no other thing he can do, he should come and build industry in this evil forest so that the place can be opened and our youth can have jobs in the place,   rather than keep an evil forest fallow here.”

“Unfortunately, the day vigilante people and Okada riders arrested one of the suspects; the police came and saved him. So police is part of our problem because we heard that the people perpetrating this killing in the forest always settle the police if any of them are arrested.

“Because of the killings in this forest, our people no longer go to their farms due to fear. Apart from that, when you go into the city and want to come back, no Okada man will agree to bring you to this village due to fear. We are suffering and if this forest is not developed, these killings will continue. What the Air Force people do each time they come is to beat up our people, rather than develop their land,”