The August 2004 incident in Okija, Anambra State, drew much of international attention to Nigeria. It also dented the image of the country, as it became, to many foreigners and Nigerians alike, a clime peopled by cannibals and fetish persons.
In fact, many regarded Okija with much hatred and turned the discovery of corpses and body parts at a shrine in the town to a tribal stereotype, more so when political crisis was raging in Anambra State over who should control the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, while the then state governor, Chris Ngige, and a PDP chieftain in the state, Chris Uba, engaged each other in a war of attrition.
The debacle in the state helped heat up the polity and the international community expressed concern over Nigeria’s nascent democracy, even as its image plummeted, but nothing could be more devastating for the country than the discovery of a shrine where human lives were said to have been sacrificed to the gods.
The media, both local and foreign, also danced to the markets blaring the news of the discovery and narrated the tale of oddity of how over 50 corpses, 20 skulls and several human parts were discovered in Okija forest.
10 years down the line, the same oddity has resurfaced in Ibadan, Oyo State and Ogun State where dens of kidnappers and ritualists were discovered with human parts littering the floor of an abandoned building that was converted to a location where human parts were sold and bought.
As it was in Okija, so it is in Ibadan, Abeokuta and many other yet-to-be-discovered places in the country. The horrifying story of ritual killings, like a gale, has continued to blow across, without the exception of any part or region.
Stories abound daily of missing persons in the North, West, South and East. People just walked out of their houses, but never returned again. They neither got to their destinations nor retraced their steps back home. Life has become so precarious in Nigeria that no one can categorically claim invincibility or vouch invisibility to the dragnet of kidnappers and ritual killers; only the providence knows who survives this brutish state of nature.
The story of Memunat Aishat, a 34-year-old mother of two came to mind. She had travelled to Lafia, her hometown, in Nasarawa State, from Jos, only for her to be driven to an unknown location in Nasarawa, where hefty men dressed in red gowns attended to her and other occupants of the bus she boarded from Jos, Plateau State.
“It was God who saved me, how I escaped I can’t tell,” she had told a tabloid in the state late last year.
“I boarded the bus form the park with other passengers. We left Jos a few minutes to 8a.m. on the fateful day. I never knew that evil people were among the passengers, but how would one know since they don’t write their mission on their foreheads?
“A few minutes after we drove away from Jos, all I noticed was that a young man and a middle-aged woman behind me were laughing, giving one the impression that they knew each other before boarding. After that incident, I couldn’t remember anything, until I found myself inside a thick bush.
“I later discovered that only five people were real passengers; others were kidnappers in an 18-seater bus. They kept about 10 of us in a dingy room for about three days without food; they kept coming for us one after the other each passing day. The only thing we were hearing were pleas of people begging not to be killed. How I escaped I can’t explain. I just found myself on the main road,” she narrated.
The mysterious disappearance of Joshua Edem while going to his brother’s shop in Okota, Lagos State, in 2008, is still fresh in the memories of his relatives and neighbours. Unlike Aishat who escaped the evil fate, Joshua didn’t. He was killed by faceless persons who dismembered him and went away with his genitals, wrists, eyes and toes. His corpse was sighted around Isolo a few days after his disappearance.
Why do people kill for rituals?
It sounds rhetorical, but the real reasons, according to those who spoke on the issue, go beyond making money and seeking for p
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| Chief Yemi Elebuibon |
According to a cleric, Pastor John Adetuyi, of the Holy Ghost Tabernacle Ministry, Lagos, “We live in a community that also accommodates wolves and evil individuals whose lust for power and riches force them to commit unconscionable acts.
“This is not peculiar to Nigeria, it is common in Africa, and it is because we are a fetish people. Africans believe in human sacrifice; we are superstitious and believe that appeasing the Devil with sacrifices concocted from human parts would make us become rich.
“Many people have this warped mindset; this is why ritual killings would continue in this part of the world. It is a real business judging from what we hear every day, and only God can stop it. Besides, it is spiritual; some people whom you see walking the streets are not ordinary people, they are rather agents of Satan. They kill to satisfy their master,” Pastor Adetuyi noted.
Ritual killing is a money-spinner
In an online report obtained by Sunday Tribune, a human head, with all the condiments, is said to be sold for between N200,000 and N500,000.
Other human parts, it was learnt, even attract higher prices, while those in need of human parts reportedly come around oftentimes to select from captives in the custody of kidnappers or ritualists.
Though the report did not claim any source or location, it, however, alleged that politicians as well as power and fortune seekers were those who always came around demanding for human parts.
“Though I can’t confirm it too, but the fact remains that those who do this thing would have stopped if it is not ‘lucrative’, and if there are no buyers,” Ms Adigun Adinatu, a trader in Bode herb market, Ibadan, disclosed.
“We don’t sell human parts here; it is against the will of God, because those who kill would also be killed. We only sell herbs here, besides those who sell human parts wouldn’t do it in the open. All I know is that it is evil and I have heard people say it times without number that people use human parts for money,” she said willingly, though she refused to be photographed.
A herbalist, Jimoh Akanji, revealed that some traditionalists truly patronise him and other herbalists asking for all sorts of things.
“We are trained to be receptive to people; they are our clients, but Eledumare and Ifa forbid that we do money rituals for people. It is true that some specifically ask for it, but I always advise them against it. It is evil. There are money rituals; the ingredients for doing the rituals are grave; they involve a lot of things that I can’t disclose here.
“I must confess that there are some herbalists who do money rituals for people, but their end is always bad. You can’t kill to live. The spirit of those you killed would continue to haunt you till you die; that is the consequence,” he added.
Medical practice and use of human parts
Many are of the view that demand for human parts is on the increase because medical practitioners, too, often use human parts, especially internal organs, in their practice. Stories, they claimed, abound of the sick with damaged organs, but had them replaced and continued to live normally.
When asked about the veracity of the claim, a neurosurgeon, Dr Phillip Osikoya, denied it, saying rather than using human parts, medical practitioners, especially surgeons, used artificial body parts in medical training and not real human parts.
Organ harvesting is illegal in Nigeria
Commenting on organ harvesting as a reason why ritual killings may not end soon in the country, Dr Osikoya disclosed that harvesting organs was illegal in Nigeria, noting that he had heard that some Nigerians often travelled outside the country to sell their kidneys.
“I have heard this tale; it could be true. I am aware that there are some countries where organ harvesting is legal, so some Nigerians have been said to always frequent these countries to sell their organs.
“However, one cannot say categorically that human organs found on ritual killers are often sold abroad, because for human organs to be harvested the heart must still be beating. Human organs cannot be harvested when the heart stops beating. How would ritualists, for instance, harvest the tongues or kidneys of people killed by them since they don’t have any medical training on how to harvest human organs?
“I don’t believe in that; however, nothing is impossible in this country. This is why our law enforcement agents and members of the public need to put in more efforts to expose those who engage in ritual killings,” he added.
Ritual killing is not African, religious
According to a prominent Ifa priest, Chief Ifayemi Elebuibon, ritual killing has nothing to do with religion, neither is it African. He said Africans were brought up to respect the sanctity of human life, saying this was why many deified figures in lore and myths of the people of the continent tell of how many of the personalities sacrificed animals instead of humans to their gods.
He admitted the fact that human sacrifices existed in different cultures across the globe before, adding that this had been abolished.
“Jesus Christ sacrificed himself, same for Ibrahim who wanted to slaughter Ismaila, but was replaced by a ram from Allah. Orunmila, too, in Otu Ife wanted to kill his son, but a goat was sacrificed instead of him; however, all these have been abolished.
“Those who kill people and remove their parts are doing so for money rituals, and this has nothing to do with religion. No religion condones it. It is not true that people kill to seek powers. Most of the powers that people seek these days include egbe, ajabo, afeeri; none of these has human parts as its ingredients.
“Those who practise this evil should be aware that they are humans too. If their children were captured and killed, would they be happy about it?
Bible forbids killing, same in traditional religion, because all of us are going to reap the rewards of our actions, hence people should desist from evil,” he added.
Whether it is for money, power or fame, the realty stares all of us in the face – ritual killers are here, they live among us stalking their would-be victims with the gumption of a psychopath. Beware! That person next to you could be one.
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