A season of murders
By:
CHARLES ADEGBITE, Ado-Ekiti
Date:
Fri, 07/27/2012 - 19:27


Call it a harvest of the morbid, even heinous type. In the last one month, Ekiti State, the “Land of Honour,” has recorded at least five incidents of killing. One of them is suspected to be for rituals. All of this has created serious apprehension among the people and concern to government and security agencies.

The new Commissioner of Police in the state, Mr. Sotonye Wakama, had barely settled down in office, when a female teacher, Mrs. Rafatu Agboola, was nabbed for allegedly killing her husband. She is currently detained at the police command headquarters in Ado-Ekiti.


The lady had submitted herself to the police in Usi-Ekiti. She told the security agency that she butchered her own husband (also a teacher) at night on June 12 while he was sleeping in his room. The police are, however, suspecting that the woman may be suffering from psychiatric problems, as there was apparently no motive for the murder. The couple got married in 2009 after a period of courtship and they had been living peaceably until the tragic incident.


However, when her family could not produce any convincing medical history to give impetus to the suspicion of psychiatric condition, the police had to drag her to court.


Barely two weeks earlier, a 35-year-old lunatic named Kehinde (aka Efunmi lowo Okan yin abale o) was found dead in a public primary school in Ado-Ekiti, where he used to sleep until then. He was found with his head cut off, fuelling the suggestion that he might have been killed for ritual.

The murder of this famous madman generated a lot of controversies. Accusing fingers pointed at a pastor of one of the new generation churches. People claimed that the pastor, before the murder, had shaven the madman’s head on two occasions and taken the hairs away, claiming that he was administering deliverance on the man. The Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) Mr. Victor Babayemi, however, said this was a mere rumour.


He said that the corpse the madman had been deposited at the mortuary. However, he added that the police had not begun an investigation because people concerned were not ready to give information. Towards the end of June, a 70-year-old woman, Mrs. Rebecca Adewumi, was tortured to death by some youths allegedly master-minded by some traditionalists over an alleged confession of a young lady that the old woman was a witch. The Adewumi family, through their lawyers, Messrs Dele Omotoso and Company, in a petition dated July 5, 2012, said the deceased was subjected to trial by ordeal, after she was accused of causing the sickness of one Ola, her stepson.


According to the eldest daughter of the deceased, Mrs. Grace Smith, the ordeal of her mother started on May 9, 2012 when her mother was taken to the palace of the Olomuo of Omuo-Ekiti, Oba Noah Omonigbehin, charged with being a member of a coven.



Mrs. Smith said: “After a series of questioning and being asked to UnCloth completely even to the pants, my mother was given a concoction (Obo leave) said to make witches confess and die and was told that she would die within seven days if she was involved in Ola’s matter. Nine days passed and nothing happened and I left for my base in Lagos.


“Three weeks after, precisely June 26, 2012, some youths in the town went to our house and brought out my mother and forced her to drink a poisonous item and took her outside into the rain where she was beaten and subjected to serious torture and when she was almost dying they took her back into her room and laid her on the bed. She died on June 30, 2012,” Mrs. Smith explained.



She said further that while the old woman was being beaten, some youths went to the house of her younger sister, Mrs. Anike Orojo, and beat her for daring to cater for her mother. “Right now, no member of the family knows where the corpse has been taken to and we want the police to investigate her death as well as the assault on her sister,” she added.


The state government, appalled by the act, has asked the police to apprehend those involved killing. The government is doing that through state Ministry of Women Affairs and Gender Empowerment. While this was still being discussed, news broke from Aramoko in Ekiti West Local Government Area of the state that one Mrs. Bose Edijana Lucky had been beheaded. It was Thursday July 6, 2012.


The woman was murdered around 9:30a.m, that fateful day along a footpath leading to her husband, Mr. Naefenwa Lucky’s farm. She was on her way to the farm with the man’s meal, it was said. It was further said that when her husband discovered what had happened, he rushed to the town to inform other Urhobo natives. He told them that his wife had been beheaded by those he suspected to be ritual killers.


There and then, the community leader, together with other elders went straight to the palace of Alara of Aramoko, Oba Olu Adeyemi and reported the incident to him. Thereafter, the police drove to the scene of the incident to remover the remains of the victim.

But cops were shocked to discover that the head with the neck had been severed, as well as her arms and a chunk of her buttocks sliced. The husband was taken to the police station where he made statements and was subsequently detained as, according to the Urhobo community leader, he was suspected to have known something about the killing of his wife.

The couple were said to be of Urhobo tribe from Warri in Delta State and Bose, who was said to be about 40 years old, had four children. The eldest child, Samson, 12, is in primary five and the last, Endurance, six, is in primary one.


The Ekiti State Command of the Nigeria Police said about four persons had arrested in connection with the death. Speaking with journalists in Ado-Ekiti on the issue, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) ASP Victor Babayemi, said the four men arrested in connection with the murder case were already in their custody. He disclosed that the police have engaged the services of forensic experts and the force was waiting for the autopsy reports.


While the police were still busy trying to unravel the mysterious death of the beheaded mother of four, news reached newsmen that another murder case had occurred at Erijiyan Ekiti. This time, it was a student of the Ekiti State University (EKSU), Ado-Ekiti, Mr. Boluwaji Olarinoye. It was alleged that he was stabbed to death by his friend, Mr. Wale Adewumi.


The incident occurred at Erijiyan in Ekiti West Local Government Area of the State on Friday night while the student was said to be demanding for N50,000 his friend owed him. Adewunmi, who is said to have been on the run since killing, has been declared wanted by the police.


The man was said to have called Olarinoye to his house that night over issues related to a N50,000 he (Adewunmi) borrowed from the student to support his timber business. Saturday Sun gathered that Olarinoye took the money from the school fees his father gave to him, preparatory to the second semester examinations of EKSU.


Olarinoye’s father told a radio station in Ado Ekiti last Saturday that his son told him that he lent N50,000 to his friend and added that on the fateful night, Adewumi invited his son to his house. The victim’s father added that his son left the food he was eating that night to answer the call. He said: “Boluwaji left for Wale’s house with the hope that Wale was ready to settle the debt. But minutes later, I heard people shouting and were lamenting that Wale and a group of his friends had matcheted Boluwaji, leaving a deep cut on his throat,” the elderly Olarionye told the radio station.


Following the death of Boluwaji, angry members of the community set Adewumi’s house on fire. It was also said that the suspect’s household fled shortly after the incident. However, an intensive manhunt by the Ekiti State Police Command has led to the arrest of the suspect at Ikere-Ekiti and he is being detained at the headquarters of the command.

http://www.sunnewsonline.com/article/season-murders

**clears throat**
Front page please