₦airaland Forum

IloveToMess:
The neck say take off my skull I say babe skull's not hot...

Dateline: 2006

Sometime in 2006, an aide of a former governor of one of the South East states quietly eased himself out his plum job because he reported for duty early in the morning one day and met his colleagues cleaning up blood. One of them later confided in him that someone had just been sacrificed for the ‘security’ of their boss. He feigned support for the satanic act until he dumped the job. There was also the case of a baby sacrificed by the wife of a governor of one of the states grappling with Boko Haram insurgency, to secure her position.

From the North, West, East and the South South of Nigeria, Sunday Sun correspondents reported that headhunters are on the prowl and an end to their mindless operations might take time to come.

Ritual killing in South East for various reasons

In ancient times, ritual killing was alien to Igbo land except those carried out to appease the gods. But with the passage of time and development of new habits, especially the get-rich-quick attitude and consequent obscene show of affluence, ritual murder became widespread in the South East zone of the country as checks by Sunday Sun in the five states of the zone revealed.

Evil Forest in Enugu

Petrus Obi in Enugu reports that an evil forest where suspected ritualists dismember their victims was discovered in Enugu State recently. Fresh and decomposing human parts were found in the forest located at Inyi, Enugu Ezike in the Igboeze North Local Government of the State.

It was suspected that victims were taken to the forest and butchered by their assailants who in turn removed vital parts needed for money-spinning rituals. In an attempt to end the evil practice in the area, the people had petitioned the State government, urging it to acquire the expanse of land belonging to the village shrine, Ogene Mmili.

The natives that were worried over increasing cases of missing persons in the community, demanded that those involved in the killings should be exposed and punished.

Among the casualties was Miss Eucharia Abugu Eya who was abducted in the street and later found dead in the evil forest with some parts of her body missing.

It was gathered that Miss Gloria Ugwueke (35), and Caroline Odo Eje, a widow with seven children were earlier victims of ritual killing in the community.

However, it was the killing of Miss Edith Ijeoma Onu Ossai that sparked off protests in the community. More than 1,000 women took to the streets, demanding an end to the killings. Edith’s body had been found without her heart, kidney and private part.

Reacting to the spate of ritual killings in parts of Igbo land, the traditional ruler of Enugu Urban (Ogui Nike), Igwe (Dr.) Tony Ojukwu, noted that such killings were alien to Igbo culture.

He traced the ugly trend to travellers from Igbo land that visited other cultures and in the process, copied the practice of using human heads to bury important personalities.

“It was in the course of travelling that our people encountered these killings and tried to import it into Igbo culture; not that our culture encourages kidnapping and killing people. It’s the people who travelled out and visited some cultures where if a prominent person died, they would keep the death secret until some heads were collected to bury the person in strange belief that it add to the deceased’s prestige.

“Such cultures believe that the coffin of a great man must lie on top of some human heads. His kinsmen would travel out or move into the farms to behead people for burial of their dead. It was imported into Igbo land.

“Even in this place, there were times if important persons died non-adults were kept at home; they don’t go to fetch firewood or water to avoid being beheaded. But civilization and Christianity has restructured everything.”

Still in Anambra state, Dom Ekpunobi and Emma Uzor report that ritual killings seldom occur in the commercial city of Onitsha, because the area is dominated by businessmen, who believe in utilizing their time and talent to create wealth instead of engaging in diabolical means of making it in life. The fact, however, remains that those who found it difficult to remain afloat through hard work resorted to violent crimes such as armed robbery and kidnapping. Chief Rommy Ezeonwuka (Ogisi Igbo) who spoke to Sunday Sun on the implication of ritual killing, said it was an abomination for anybody to kill a fellow human being for ritual.

Chief Ezeonwuka posited that whenever such happens, the land is desecrated and there must be sacrifice to appease the gods.

He said that on no account should the blood of a human being be shed, pointing out that the gods decry such acts.

Ebonyi: Baby snatched from mother’s breast

From Ebonyi state, Goddy Osuji reports that cases of ritual murder abound in the state and that several cases were yet to be resolved by the police.

One of the most agonizing was the abduction of seven under-aged children at Ishiagu community. Among them, was a nine-month old baby snatched from its mother, Mrs Alice Nkwo while she was breast-feeding the baby. The hoodlums later moved into the family’s bedroom and abducted two other children aged between two and three years.

Bemoaning her losses, Mrs Nkwo said that her mind had not been at rest because she could still hear the cries of her abducted children. This and similar incidents prompted a peaceful protest by women in Ishiagu community against rampant abduction of children for rituals.

Also, a 32-year-old nursing mother, Mrs. Nnenna Emmanuel watched helplessly as some hoodlums forcibly took away her two children, eight months old Chidubem Emmanuel and three-year-old Chiemelem Emmanuel on December 24, 2012.

“It was on the Christmas Eve at about 4am, we were sleeping when we heard the sound of a vehicle parking in front of our house. When the car parked, I woke up and my little baby started crying. I carried him to breast feed him while we waited to know the people parking their car in front of our house at that time of the night. “Suddenly, they kicked our door open and one of them entered the house, gave me a slap and snatched my breast-feeding child from me. The other person broke into the other room where my three-year-old baby was sleeping with his grandmother and took him, and they rushed into their car and zoomed off.

“We raised the alarm but before our neighbours could come, they had driven off. I noticed that they were four in number; two persons were in front while another man and a woman sat at the back off the car but because it was dark, I couldn’t see their faces.

Each night I close my eyes, I hear the cries of my two little children calling me. I pray they are still alive”, the distraught mother lamented.

Also, at Eketube in Enyida Development Centre, the headless body of an apprentice nurse, Miss Kelechi Nwawaka (20), was found behind the Comprehensive Secondary School in the community. She was allegedly murdered at Ndiechi Eketube in Abakaliki local government area of the state. Her head, private part and fingers were cut off apparently for ritual purpose.

It was gathered that Kelechi’s journey to her brutal end started on the New Year day when one of her relations, Mrs Margaret Augustine Nweke, invited her for a dinner in her house which she honoured, and later at night, she left for her mother’s house, escorted by the son of her hostess,

A search party comprising men of the Civil Defence Corps and some villagers later found the mutilated body.

Imo: Victims killed, dumped in Nworie River

Our correspondent, George Onyejiuwa in Owerri, reports that in Imo State, ritual killings have been relatively low compared to other neighbouring states. Improved security and clampdown on ritualists’ den in the state by the present administration may have accounted for this.

Be that as it may, there were pockets of cases of missing persons, who were either found days later, with their vital organs missing or simply disappeared without trace.

Recently, there were reported cases of suspected ritual killings especially in Owerri, the state capital. Among them was the discovery of the lifeless bodies of two female students of the Imo State University, with some of their organs missing.

The bodies fished out from the Nworie River on old Nekede road in Owerri metropolis, were suspected to have been dumped in the river by suspected ritualists. Also, there was a reported case of the body of an unidentified young man with missing organs found floating in the Okitankwo stream in Umuchu Uratta village in Owerri North council area.

Mr Ikedia Zereuwa, told Sunday Sun that he suspected that his younger brother, Iwuchukwu Zereuwa, was killed by ritualists who abducted him while on his way to their village, Umuakpu community in Ngor Okpala, from a business trip in Elele community.

“My younger brother was abducted while on his way back from Elele where he had gone to transact business, but he was lucky to have survived because the Okada operator that he paid to transport him to our village that night was an agent of ritualists. So, instead of taking the major road, he took him through a track road which he told my brother was shorter. They had just moved for a short distance when three men came out from the bush and blocked their way.

“It was from there that he was dragged to a small hut in the bush where there were other people. Luckily, the native doctor pointedly told those that brought him that he was not the type of person they needed and ordered them to set him free. But instead, the abductors tied him to a tree and left him there. My brother was later rescued by a man who had gone to the bush to set traps”, he stated.

Virgins in high demand for rituals

Checks by Sunday Sun revealed that the most vulnerable groups in the state are school children, young ladies, pregnant women and elderly people.

It was also gathered that most of the ritual killers target children because it is believed that most children at that relatively tender age are virgins and more potent. Female virgins were also said to be in high demand for rituals.

However, Amadi Okereafor, the chief priest of Umuohoko community in Ngor Okpala council area of Imo State told Sunday Sun that it is a sacrilege in Igbo land for anyone to terminate the life of another. He said that in the days of their ancestors if a man killed his brother or neighbour, he would automatically be banished from the community.

He further pointed out that the rising incidence of ritual killings were due to the inordinate ambition of the new generation of Ndigbo who think that money is the ultimate.

“Life was sacred in Igbo land in the time of our ancestors because if a man killed his kinsman he would be banished because he or she had committed a sin against the land. But today life is nothing as people kill in the name of anything,” he said.

The chief priest also blamed the upsurge in ritual killings on politicians who are ready to do anything to win political office.

Abia: Baby snatched from labour room

Our correspondents, Chuks Onuoha in Umuahia and Okey Sampson in Aba, Abia State report that ritual killing seemed to have become a regular occurrence in some parts of the state to the extent that many have become apprehensive when travelling in the state.

Not long ago, a newly born baby was snatched from the labour room while the mother was battling for survival from post-delivery bleeding.

The baby was yet to be found as at the time of this report and the suspicion is that it must have been used for ritual.

Few days after the tot was snatched, the body of a woman without breasts, eyes, and other vital organs was found in a bush path. Before that incident, a young man, residing in a village in Ohuhu sliced the throat of another young man who passed a night with him in his apartment and fled the village.

He was later caught in far away Port Harcourt, River State, where he’d ran to for safety. He was quoted as saying that a highly placed son of a notable personality within the community had commissioned him to kill the young man and bring some parts of his body.

Two years ago, a woman that went to her farm in Ohuhu near Umuahia in the evening was killed and some of her vital organs removed by unknown persons.

A community leader and one of the oldest men in Ohuhu, Chief Onukwube Anyanwu, told Sunday Sun that rituals are nothing, but sacrifices made to enhance one’s chances and opportunities.

“Different types of people in the society perform rituals and sacrifices to make strong charms for protection, fame, success, riches, etc. The highest of all the charms that can be made by man are those that demand human sacrifice. They are the major causes of ritual killings. There are many people within the society who are in a hurry to attain a particular height. They are not ready to wait for God’s time and for that reason, they want to push the hand of the clock to move faster. When the native doctors or herbalists see such people, they give them very hard conditions like the provision of human parts in order to get what they want.

“Human blood, whether we like it or not, is the costliest of all things mankind can possess. That is the reason many people seem to be succeeding in ritual practices. But whether they like it or not, those who embark on such things have ways of paying back sooner or later.

“In Igbo land, rituals are believed to enhance the chances of those who perform it to have one gain or the other. People consult an oracle and the oracle demands that the only thing that will make them succeed is to bring specific human parts.

“Time was when albinos and hunch-backs were at risk, because it was believed that the oracles demanded them to grant the desire of those who consult them”, Anyanwu said.

Prior to the deployment of soldiers to Abia State in 2010 by the federal government, kidnapping was the order of the day in the state, particularly its commercial hub, Aba.

Now that it appears that soldiers have put kidnappers out of ‘business’, these hoodlums have gone into another business – ritual murder. The most vulnerable are children.

On June 11, 2012, two pupils of Oasis Christian Academy, Amaoji in Obingwa Local Government, Prince (6) and Kenneth (4), the only male children of Mr. Chimezie Nwaoha, a mortician with a private hospital in Aba set out for school.

Ironically, the parents of the two kids who had prepared them for school before going for their various businesses thought they were at school while their teachers who did not see them in school presumed that their parents didn’t allow them come to school. Unknown to both sides, the children could not make it to their school that morning because they were abducted and killed for ritual purposes inside a palm plantation that overlooked their school.

Their assailants removed their vital organs including eyes, tongues, breasts and joystick before burying the boys in a shallow grave inside the bush. The police later arrested four persons in connection with the incident. Speaking with Sunday Sun, the late children’s father, Nwaoha said he was yet to understand why somebody would cut short the lives and robust future of innocent children. He said it would be difficult for the gap created by the death of his two sons because the boys were his future hope.

Nwaoha advised other parents to, “look for maids to take care of your kids if you are busy all the time,” adding that if he had a maid what befell him couldn’t have happened. He appealed to the Abia state government to assist his family.

As the police were still grappling with the case of the murdered schoolboys, another suspected ritual murder occurred in the city.

A trailer driver, Ndubuisi (other names withheld) who hails from Amawbia, Awka in Anambra State, allegedly forced his wife, Chinyere, to drink some quantity of fuel and set her ablaze. The woman’s family alleged ritual murder.

Speaking on the incidents in Igboland, a chief priest, Kanu Nwaohamuo said ritual killing was not new in that part of the country. He said it started in the early days when able-bodied men, especially slaves and at times those that have offended the land were sacrificed to appease the gods. Children were not used for that purpose and ritual killings were not for moneymaking. It was done to either appease the gods of the land or as a mark of respect for a fallen king or great man in a community and were seldom done.

The chief priest regretted that these days, ritual murder of even innocent children, has become rampant in Igbo land, and mostly for moneymaking, describing the frequency of such cases as alarming.

He said ritual killing is crime against humanity and urged security operatives to double their efforts in fighting the crime.

The South South zone rated the lowest in ritual killings. For example, in Rivers state, Tony John and Canice Uzoukwu reported that the rampant crimes are armed robbery, kidnapping and cultism.

The State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Mr. Benjamin Ugwuegbulam (DSP), also told Sunday Sun said that there had not been any reported case of ritual killing in the State.

IloveToMess:
The neck say take off my skull I say babe skull's not hot.....

Dateline: 2006

Sometime in 2006, an aide of a former governor of one of the South East states quietly eased himself out his plum job because he reported for duty early in the morning one day and met his colleagues cleaning up blood. One of them later confided in him that someone had just been sacrificed for the ‘security’ of their boss. He feigned support for the satanic act until he dumped the job. There was also the case of a baby sacrificed by the wife of a governor of one of the states grappling with Boko Haram insurgency, to secure her position.

From the North, West, East and the South South of Nigeria, Sunday Sun correspondents reported that headhunters are on the prowl and an end to their mindless operations might take time to come.

Ritual killing in South East for various reasons

In ancient times, ritual killing was alien to Igbo land except those carried out to appease the gods. But with the passage of time and development of new habits, especially the get-rich-quick attitude and consequent obscene show of affluence, ritual murder became widespread in the South East zone of the country as checks by Sunday Sun in the five states of the zone revealed.

Evil Forest in Enugu

Petrus Obi in Enugu reports that an evil forest where suspected ritualists dismember their victims was discovered in Enugu State recently. Fresh and decomposing human parts were found in the forest located at Inyi, Enugu Ezike in the Igboeze North Local Government of the State.

It was suspected that victims were taken to the forest and butchered by their assailants who in turn removed vital parts needed for money-spinning rituals. In an attempt to end the evil practice in the area, the people had petitioned the State government, urging it to acquire the expanse of land belonging to the village shrine, Ogene Mmili.

The natives that were worried over increasing cases of missing persons in the community, demanded that those involved in the killings should be exposed and punished.

Among the casualties was Miss Eucharia Abugu Eya who was abducted in the street and later found dead in the evil forest with some parts of her body missing.

It was gathered that Miss Gloria Ugwueke (35), and Caroline Odo Eje, a widow with seven children were earlier victims of ritual killing in the community.

However, it was the killing of Miss Edith Ijeoma Onu Ossai that sparked off protests in the community. More than 1,000 women took to the streets, demanding an end to the killings. Edith’s body had been found without her heart, kidney and private part.

Reacting to the spate of ritual killings in parts of Igbo land, the traditional ruler of Enugu Urban (Ogui Nike), Igwe (Dr.) Tony Ojukwu, noted that such killings were alien to Igbo culture.

He traced the ugly trend to travellers from Igbo land that visited other cultures and in the process, copied the practice of using human heads to bury important personalities.

“It was in the course of travelling that our people encountered these killings and tried to import it into Igbo culture; not that our culture encourages kidnapping and killing people. It’s the people who travelled out and visited some cultures where if a prominent person died, they would keep the death secret until some heads were collected to bury the person in strange belief that it add to the deceased’s prestige.

“Such cultures believe that the coffin of a great man must lie on top of some human heads. His kinsmen would travel out or move into the farms to behead people for burial of their dead. It was imported into Igbo land.

“Even in this place, there were times if important persons died non-adults were kept at home; they don’t go to fetch firewood or water to avoid being beheaded. But civilization and Christianity has restructured everything.”

Still in Anambra state, Dom Ekpunobi and Emma Uzor report that ritual killings seldom occur in the commercial city of Onitsha, because the area is dominated by businessmen, who believe in utilizing their time and talent to create wealth instead of engaging in diabolical means of making it in life. The fact, however, remains that those who found it difficult to remain afloat through hard work resorted to violent crimes such as armed robbery and kidnapping. Chief Rommy Ezeonwuka (Ogisi Igbo) who spoke to Sunday Sun on the implication of ritual killing, said it was an abomination for anybody to kill a fellow human being for ritual.

Chief Ezeonwuka posited that whenever such happens, the land is desecrated and there must be sacrifice to appease the gods.

He said that on no account should the blood of a human being be shed, pointing out that the gods decry such acts.

Ebonyi: Baby snatched from mother’s breast

From Ebonyi state, Goddy Osuji reports that cases of ritual murder abound in the state and that several cases were yet to be resolved by the police.

One of the most agonizing was the abduction of seven under-aged children at Ishiagu community. Among them, was a nine-month old baby snatched from its mother, Mrs Alice Nkwo while she was breast-feeding the baby. The hoodlums later moved into the family’s bedroom and abducted two other children aged between two and three years.

Bemoaning her losses, Mrs Nkwo said that her mind had not been at rest because she could still hear the cries of her abducted children. This and similar incidents prompted a peaceful protest by women in Ishiagu community against rampant abduction of children for rituals.

Also, a 32-year-old nursing mother, Mrs. Nnenna Emmanuel watched helplessly as some hoodlums forcibly took away her two children, eight months old Chidubem Emmanuel and three-year-old Chiemelem Emmanuel on December 24, 2012.

“It was on the Christmas Eve at about 4am, we were sleeping when we heard the sound of a vehicle parking in front of our house. When the car parked, I woke up and my little baby started crying. I carried him to breast feed him while we waited to know the people parking their car in front of our house at that time of the night. “Suddenly, they kicked our door open and one of them entered the house, gave me a slap and snatched my breast-feeding child from me. The other person broke into the other room where my three-year-old baby was sleeping with his grandmother and took him, and they rushed into their car and zoomed off.

“We raised the alarm but before our neighbours could come, they had driven off. I noticed that they were four in number; two persons were in front while another man and a woman sat at the back off the car but because it was dark, I couldn’t see their faces.

Each night I close my eyes, I hear the cries of my two little children calling me. I pray they are still alive”, the distraught mother lamented.

Also, at Eketube in Enyida Development Centre, the headless body of an apprentice nurse, Miss Kelechi Nwawaka (20), was found behind the Comprehensive Secondary School in the community. She was allegedly murdered at Ndiechi Eketube in Abakaliki local government area of the state. Her head, private part and fingers were cut off apparently for ritual purpose.

It was gathered that Kelechi’s journey to her brutal end started on the New Year day when one of her relations, Mrs Margaret Augustine Nweke, invited her for a dinner in her house which she honoured, and later at night, she left for her mother’s house, escorted by the son of her hostess,

A search party comprising men of the Civil Defence Corps and some villagers later found the mutilated body.

Imo: Victims killed, dumped in Nworie River

Our correspondent, George Onyejiuwa in Owerri, reports that in Imo State, ritual killings have been relatively low compared to other neighbouring states. Improved security and clampdown on ritualists’ den in the state by the present administration may have accounted for this.

Be that as it may, there were pockets of cases of missing persons, who were either found days later, with their vital organs missing or simply disappeared without trace.

Recently, there were reported cases of suspected ritual killings especially in Owerri, the state capital. Among them was the discovery of the lifeless bodies of two female students of the Imo State University, with some of their organs missing.

The bodies fished out from the Nworie River on old Nekede road in Owerri metropolis, were suspected to have been dumped in the river by suspected ritualists. Also, there was a reported case of the body of an unidentified young man with missing organs found floating in the Okitankwo stream in Umuchu Uratta village in Owerri North council area.

Mr Ikedia Zereuwa, told Sunday Sun that he suspected that his younger brother, Iwuchukwu Zereuwa, was killed by ritualists who abducted him while on his way to their village, Umuakpu community in Ngor Okpala, from a business trip in Elele community.

“My younger brother was abducted while on his way back from Elele where he had gone to transact business, but he was lucky to have survived because the Okada operator that he paid to transport him to our village that night was an agent of ritualists. So, instead of taking the major road, he took him through a track road which he told my brother was shorter. They had just moved for a short distance when three men came out from the bush and blocked their way.

“It was from there that he was dragged to a small hut in the bush where there were other people. Luckily, the native doctor pointedly told those that brought him that he was not the type of person they needed and ordered them to set him free. But instead, the abductors tied him to a tree and left him there. My brother was later rescued by a man who had gone to the bush to set traps”, he stated.

Virgins in high demand for rituals

Checks by Sunday Sun revealed that the most vulnerable groups in the state are school children, young ladies, pregnant women and elderly people.

It was also gathered that most of the ritual killers target children because it is believed that most children at that relatively tender age are virgins and more potent. Female virgins were also said to be in high demand for rituals.

However, Amadi Okereafor, the chief priest of Umuohoko community in Ngor Okpala council area of Imo State told Sunday Sun that it is a sacrilege in Igbo land for anyone to terminate the life of another. He said that in the days of their ancestors if a man killed his brother or neighbour, he would automatically be banished from the community.

He further pointed out that the rising incidence of ritual killings were due to the inordinate ambition of the new generation of Ndigbo who think that money is the ultimate.

“Life was sacred in Igbo land in the time of our ancestors because if a man killed his kinsman he would be banished because he or she had committed a sin against the land. But today life is nothing as people kill in the name of anything,” he said.

The chief priest also blamed the upsurge in ritual killings on politicians who are ready to do anything to win political office.

Abia: Baby snatched from labour room

Our correspondents, Chuks Onuoha in Umuahia and Okey Sampson in Aba, Abia State report that ritual killing seemed to have become a regular occurrence in some parts of the state to the extent that many have become apprehensive when travelling in the state.

Not long ago, a newly born baby was snatched from the labour room while the mother was battling for survival from post-delivery bleeding.

The baby was yet to be found as at the time of this report and the suspicion is that it must have been used for ritual.

Few days after the tot was snatched, the body of a woman without breasts, eyes, and other vital organs was found in a bush path. Before that incident, a young man, residing in a village in Ohuhu sliced the throat of another young man who passed a night with him in his apartment and fled the village.

He was later caught in far away Port Harcourt, River State, where he’d ran to for safety. He was quoted as saying that a highly placed son of a notable personality within the community had commissioned him to kill the young man and bring some parts of his body.

Two years ago, a woman that went to her farm in Ohuhu near Umuahia in the evening was killed and some of her vital organs removed by unknown persons.

A community leader and one of the oldest men in Ohuhu, Chief Onukwube Anyanwu, told Sunday Sun that rituals are nothing, but sacrifices made to enhance one’s chances and opportunities.

“Different types of people in the society perform rituals and sacrifices to make strong charms for protection, fame, success, riches, etc. The highest of all the charms that can be made by man are those that demand human sacrifice. They are the major causes of ritual killings. There are many people within the society who are in a hurry to attain a particular height. They are not ready to wait for God’s time and for that reason, they want to push the hand of the clock to move faster. When the native doctors or herbalists see such people, they give them very hard conditions like the provision of human parts in order to get what they want.

“Human blood, whether we like it or not, is the costliest of all things mankind can possess. That is the reason many people seem to be succeeding in ritual practices. But whether they like it or not, those who embark on such things have ways of paying back sooner or later.

“In Igbo land, rituals are believed to enhance the chances of those who perform it to have one gain or the other. People consult an oracle and the oracle demands that the only thing that will make them succeed is to bring specific human parts.

“Time was when albinos and hunch-backs were at risk, because it was believed that the oracles demanded them to grant the desire of those who consult them”, Anyanwu said.

Prior to the deployment of soldiers to Abia State in 2010 by the federal government, kidnapping was the order of the day in the state, particularly its commercial hub, Aba.

Now that it appears that soldiers have put kidnappers out of ‘business’, these hoodlums have gone into another business – ritual murder. The most vulnerable are children.

On June 11, 2012, two pupils of Oasis Christian Academy, Amaoji in Obingwa Local Government, Prince (6) and Kenneth (4), the only male children of Mr. Chimezie Nwaoha, a mortician with a private hospital in Aba set out for school.

Ironically, the parents of the two kids who had prepared them for school before going for their various businesses thought they were at school while their teachers who did not see them in school presumed that their parents didn’t allow them come to school. Unknown to both sides, the children could not make it to their school that morning because they were abducted and killed for ritual purposes inside a palm plantation that overlooked their school.

Their assailants removed their vital organs including eyes, tongues, breasts and joystick before burying the boys in a shallow grave inside the bush. The police later arrested four persons in connection with the incident. Speaking with Sunday Sun, the late children’s father, Nwaoha said he was yet to understand why somebody would cut short the lives and robust future of innocent children. He said it would be difficult for the gap created by the death of his two sons because the boys were his future hope.

Nwaoha advised other parents to, “look for maids to take care of your kids if you are busy all the time,” adding that if he had a maid what befell him couldn’t have happened. He appealed to the Abia state government to assist his family.

As the police were still grappling with the case of the murdered schoolboys, another suspected ritual murder occurred in the city.

A trailer driver, Ndubuisi (other names withheld) who hails from Amawbia, Awka in Anambra State, allegedly forced his wife, Chinyere, to drink some quantity of fuel and set her ablaze. The woman’s family alleged ritual murder.

Speaking on the incidents in Igboland, a chief priest, Kanu Nwaohamuo said ritual killing was not new in that part of the country. He said it started in the early days when able-bodied men, especially slaves and at times those that have offended the land were sacrificed to appease the gods. Children were not used for that purpose and ritual killings were not for moneymaking. It was done to either appease the gods of the land or as a mark of respect for a fallen king or great man in a community and were seldom done.

The chief priest regretted that these days, ritual murder of even innocent children, has become rampant in Igbo land, and mostly for moneymaking, describing the frequency of such cases as alarming.

He said ritual killing is crime against humanity and urged security operatives to double their efforts in fighting the crime.

The South South zone rated the lowest in ritual killings. For example, in Rivers state, Tony John and Canice Uzoukwu reported that the rampant crimes are armed robbery, kidnapping and cultism.

The State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Mr. Benjamin Ugwuegbulam (DSP), also told Sunday Sun said that there had not been any reported case of ritual killing in the State.

IloveToMess:
The neck say take off my skull I say babe skull's not hot...

Dateline: 2006

Sometime in 2006, an aide of a former governor of one of the South East states quietly eased himself out his plum job because he reported for duty early in the morning one day and met his colleagues cleaning up blood. One of them later confided in him that someone had just been sacrificed for the ‘security’ of their boss. He feigned support for the satanic act until he dumped the job. There was also the case of a baby sacrificed by the wife of a governor of one of the states grappling with Boko Haram insurgency, to secure her position.

From the North, West, East and the South South of Nigeria, Sunday Sun correspondents reported that headhunters are on the prowl and an end to their mindless operations might take time to come.

Ritual killing in South East for various reasons

In ancient times, ritual killing was alien to Igbo land except those carried out to appease the gods. But with the passage of time and development of new habits, especially the get-rich-quick attitude and consequent obscene show of affluence, ritual murder became widespread in the South East zone of the country as checks by Sunday Sun in the five states of the zone revealed.

Evil Forest in Enugu

Petrus Obi in Enugu reports that an evil forest where suspected ritualists dismember their victims was discovered in Enugu State recently. Fresh and decomposing human parts were found in the forest located at Inyi, Enugu Ezike in the Igboeze North Local Government of the State.

It was suspected that victims were taken to the forest and butchered by their assailants who in turn removed vital parts needed for money-spinning rituals. In an attempt to end the evil practice in the area, the people had petitioned the State government, urging it to acquire the expanse of land belonging to the village shrine, Ogene Mmili.

The natives that were worried over increasing cases of missing persons in the community, demanded that those involved in the killings should be exposed and punished.

Among the casualties was Miss Eucharia Abugu Eya who was abducted in the street and later found dead in the evil forest with some parts of her body missing.

It was gathered that Miss Gloria Ugwueke (35), and Caroline Odo Eje, a widow with seven children were earlier victims of ritual killing in the community.

However, it was the killing of Miss Edith Ijeoma Onu Ossai that sparked off protests in the community. More than 1,000 women took to the streets, demanding an end to the killings. Edith’s body had been found without her heart, kidney and private part.

Reacting to the spate of ritual killings in parts of Igbo land, the traditional ruler of Enugu Urban (Ogui Nike), Igwe (Dr.) Tony Ojukwu, noted that such killings were alien to Igbo culture.

He traced the ugly trend to travellers from Igbo land that visited other cultures and in the process, copied the practice of using human heads to bury important personalities.

“It was in the course of travelling that our people encountered these killings and tried to import it into Igbo culture; not that our culture encourages kidnapping and killing people. It’s the people who travelled out and visited some cultures where if a prominent person died, they would keep the death secret until some heads were collected to bury the person in strange belief that it add to the deceased’s prestige.

“Such cultures believe that the coffin of a great man must lie on top of some human heads. His kinsmen would travel out or move into the farms to behead people for burial of their dead. It was imported into Igbo land.

“Even in this place, there were times if important persons died non-adults were kept at home; they don’t go to fetch firewood or water to avoid being beheaded. But civilization and Christianity has restructured everything.”

Still in Anambra state, Dom Ekpunobi and Emma Uzor report that ritual killings seldom occur in the commercial city of Onitsha, because the area is dominated by businessmen, who believe in utilizing their time and talent to create wealth instead of engaging in diabolical means of making it in life. The fact, however, remains that those who found it difficult to remain afloat through hard work resorted to violent crimes such as armed robbery and kidnapping. Chief Rommy Ezeonwuka (Ogisi Igbo) who spoke to Sunday Sun on the implication of ritual killing, said it was an abomination for anybody to kill a fellow human being for ritual.

Chief Ezeonwuka posited that whenever such happens, the land is desecrated and there must be sacrifice to appease the gods.

He said that on no account should the blood of a human being be shed, pointing out that the gods decry such acts.

Ebonyi: Baby snatched from mother’s breast

From Ebonyi state, Goddy Osuji reports that cases of ritual murder abound in the state and that several cases were yet to be resolved by the police.

One of the most agonizing was the abduction of seven under-aged children at Ishiagu community. Among them, was a nine-month old baby snatched from its mother, Mrs Alice Nkwo while she was breast-feeding the baby. The hoodlums later moved into the family’s bedroom and abducted two other children aged between two and three years.

Bemoaning her losses, Mrs Nkwo said that her mind had not been at rest because she could still hear the cries of her abducted children. This and similar incidents prompted a peaceful protest by women in Ishiagu community against rampant abduction of children for rituals.

Also, a 32-year-old nursing mother, Mrs. Nnenna Emmanuel watched helplessly as some hoodlums forcibly took away her two children, eight months old Chidubem Emmanuel and three-year-old Chiemelem Emmanuel on December 24, 2012.

“It was on the Christmas Eve at about 4am, we were sleeping when we heard the sound of a vehicle parking in front of our house. When the car parked, I woke up and my little baby started crying. I carried him to breast feed him while we waited to know the people parking their car in front of our house at that time of the night. “Suddenly, they kicked our door open and one of them entered the house, gave me a slap and snatched my breast-feeding child from me. The other person broke into the other room where my three-year-old baby was sleeping with his grandmother and took him, and they rushed into their car and zoomed off.

“We raised the alarm but before our neighbours could come, they had driven off. I noticed that they were four in number; two persons were in front while another man and a woman sat at the back off the car but because it was dark, I couldn’t see their faces.

Each night I close my eyes, I hear the cries of my two little children calling me. I pray they are still alive”, the distraught mother lamented.

Also, at Eketube in Enyida Development Centre, the headless body of an apprentice nurse, Miss Kelechi Nwawaka (20), was found behind the Comprehensive Secondary School in the community. She was allegedly murdered at Ndiechi Eketube in Abakaliki local government area of the state. Her head, private part and fingers were cut off apparently for ritual purpose.

It was gathered that Kelechi’s journey to her brutal end started on the New Year day when one of her relations, Mrs Margaret Augustine Nweke, invited her for a dinner in her house which she honoured, and later at night, she left for her mother’s house, escorted by the son of her hostess,

A search party comprising men of the Civil Defence Corps and some villagers later found the mutilated body.

Imo: Victims killed, dumped in Nworie River

Our correspondent, George Onyejiuwa in Owerri, reports that in Imo State, ritual killings have been relatively low compared to other neighbouring states. Improved security and clampdown on ritualists’ den in the state by the present administration may have accounted for this.

Be that as it may, there were pockets of cases of missing persons, who were either found days later, with their vital organs missing or simply disappeared without trace.

Recently, there were reported cases of suspected ritual killings especially in Owerri, the state capital. Among them was the discovery of the lifeless bodies of two female students of the Imo State University, with some of their organs missing.

The bodies fished out from the Nworie River on old Nekede road in Owerri metropolis, were suspected to have been dumped in the river by suspected ritualists. Also, there was a reported case of the body of an unidentified young man with missing organs found floating in the Okitankwo stream in Umuchu Uratta village in Owerri North council area.

Mr Ikedia Zereuwa, told Sunday Sun that he suspected that his younger brother, Iwuchukwu Zereuwa, was killed by ritualists who abducted him while on his way to their village, Umuakpu community in Ngor Okpala, from a business trip in Elele community.

“My younger brother was abducted while on his way back from Elele where he had gone to transact business, but he was lucky to have survived because the Okada operator that he paid to transport him to our village that night was an agent of ritualists. So, instead of taking the major road, he took him through a track road which he told my brother was shorter. They had just moved for a short distance when three men came out from the bush and blocked their way.

“It was from there that he was dragged to a small hut in the bush where there were other people. Luckily, the native doctor pointedly told those that brought him that he was not the type of person they needed and ordered them to set him free. But instead, the abductors tied him to a tree and left him there. My brother was later rescued by a man who had gone to the bush to set traps”, he stated.

Virgins in high demand for rituals

Checks by Sunday Sun revealed that the most vulnerable groups in the state are school children, young ladies, pregnant women and elderly people.

It was also gathered that most of the ritual killers target children because it is believed that most children at that relatively tender age are virgins and more potent. Female virgins were also said to be in high demand for rituals.

However, Amadi Okereafor, the chief priest of Umuohoko community in Ngor Okpala council area of Imo State told Sunday Sun that it is a sacrilege in Igbo land for anyone to terminate the life of another. He said that in the days of their ancestors if a man killed his brother or neighbour, he would automatically be banished from the community.

He further pointed out that the rising incidence of ritual killings were due to the inordinate ambition of the new generation of Ndigbo who think that money is the ultimate.

“Life was sacred in Igbo land in the time of our ancestors because if a man killed his kinsman he would be banished because he or she had committed a sin against the land. But today life is nothing as people kill in the name of anything,” he said.

The chief priest also blamed the upsurge in ritual killings on politicians who are ready to do anything to win political office.

Abia: Baby snatched from labour room

Our correspondents, Chuks Onuoha in Umuahia and Okey Sampson in Aba, Abia State report that ritual killing seemed to have become a regular occurrence in some parts of the state to the extent that many have become apprehensive when travelling in the state.

Not long ago, a newly born baby was snatched from the labour room while the mother was battling for survival from post-delivery bleeding.

The baby was yet to be found as at the time of this report and the suspicion is that it must have been used for ritual.

Few days after the tot was snatched, the body of a woman without breasts, eyes, and other vital organs was found in a bush path. Before that incident, a young man, residing in a village in Ohuhu sliced the throat of another young man who passed a night with him in his apartment and fled the village.

He was later caught in far away Port Harcourt, River State, where he’d ran to for safety. He was quoted as saying that a highly placed son of a notable personality within the community had commissioned him to kill the young man and bring some parts of his body.

Two years ago, a woman that went to her farm in Ohuhu near Umuahia in the evening was killed and some of her vital organs removed by unknown persons.

A community leader and one of the oldest men in Ohuhu, Chief Onukwube Anyanwu, told Sunday Sun that rituals are nothing, but sacrifices made to enhance one’s chances and opportunities.

“Different types of people in the society perform rituals and sacrifices to make strong charms for protection, fame, success, riches, etc. The highest of all the charms that can be made by man are those that demand human sacrifice. They are the major causes of ritual killings. There are many people within the society who are in a hurry to attain a particular height. They are not ready to wait for God’s time and for that reason, they want to push the hand of the clock to move faster. When the native doctors or herbalists see such people, they give them very hard conditions like the provision of human parts in order to get what they want.

“Human blood, whether we like it or not, is the costliest of all things mankind can possess. That is the reason many people seem to be succeeding in ritual practices. But whether they like it or not, those who embark on such things have ways of paying back sooner or later.

“In Igbo land, rituals are believed to enhance the chances of those who perform it to have one gain or the other. People consult an oracle and the oracle demands that the only thing that will make them succeed is to bring specific human parts.

“Time was when albinos and hunch-backs were at risk, because it was believed that the oracles demanded them to grant the desire of those who consult them”, Anyanwu said.

Prior to the deployment of soldiers to Abia State in 2010 by the federal government, kidnapping was the order of the day in the state, particularly its commercial hub, Aba.

Now that it appears that soldiers have put kidnappers out of ‘business’, these hoodlums have gone into another business – ritual murder. The most vulnerable are children.

On June 11, 2012, two pupils of Oasis Christian Academy, Amaoji in Obingwa Local Government, Prince (6) and Kenneth (4), the only male children of Mr. Chimezie Nwaoha, a mortician with a private hospital in Aba set out for school.

Ironically, the parents of the two kids who had prepared them for school before going for their various businesses thought they were at school while their teachers who did not see them in school presumed that their parents didn’t allow them come to school. Unknown to both sides, the children could not make it to their school that morning because they were abducted and killed for ritual purposes inside a palm plantation that overlooked their school.

Their assailants removed their vital organs including eyes, tongues, breasts and joystick before burying the boys in a shallow grave inside the bush. The police later arrested four persons in connection with the incident. Speaking with Sunday Sun, the late children’s father, Nwaoha said he was yet to understand why somebody would cut short the lives and robust future of innocent children. He said it would be difficult for the gap created by the death of his two sons because the boys were his future hope.

Nwaoha advised other parents to, “look for maids to take care of your kids if you are busy all the time,” adding that if he had a maid what befell him couldn’t have happened. He appealed to the Abia state government to assist his family.

As the police were still grappling with the case of the murdered schoolboys, another suspected ritual murder occurred in the city.

A trailer driver, Ndubuisi (other names withheld) who hails from Amawbia, Awka in Anambra State, allegedly forced his wife, Chinyere, to drink some quantity of fuel and set her ablaze. The woman’s family alleged ritual murder.

Speaking on the incidents in Igboland, a chief priest, Kanu Nwaohamuo said ritual killing was not new in that part of the country. He said it started in the early days when able-bodied men, especially slaves and at times those that have offended the land were sacrificed to appease the gods. Children were not used for that purpose and ritual killings were not for moneymaking. It was done to either appease the gods of the land or as a mark of respect for a fallen king or great man in a community and were seldom done.

The chief priest regretted that these days, ritual murder of even innocent children, has become rampant in Igbo land, and mostly for moneymaking, describing the frequency of such cases as alarming.

He said ritual killing is crime against humanity and urged security operatives to double their efforts in fighting the crime.

The South South zone rated the lowest in ritual killings. For example, in Rivers state, Tony John and Canice Uzoukwu reported that the rampant crimes are armed robbery, kidnapping and cultism.

The State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Mr. Benjamin Ugwuegbulam (DSP), also told Sunday Sun said that there had not been any reported case of ritual killing in the State.

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Houseofglam7:

Calm down na

You too much

tsinzu:
This one no go pass soldier work. Police no dey behave like this

I tell you. If na police dem fit dey do strong head but Soldier! Chai! Who wan die!

Houseofglam7:
Am I the only one who's not swayed by a buffed up bod




Oh well, I think I am.
Having 6 packs or abs that look like the shell of a tortoise don't impress me at all

See finishing

Slynation:
if this gets to FP, i will donate my scrotum to the less privilege....

You're Wicked

lordopsy2018:
let d result keep coming

Wicked pics.

Hardewarlee:
Joke apart when Oyo State indigene wants to treat your Bleep up , I swear to God no one can stop them .



Ajimobi as chew more than he can bite ! His running mouth/failure has affected the fresh candidate from his party .



Nobody knows tomorrow , Control the beast in you mostly in public . Everybody has its own beast .


God is never sleeping

Stop bragging

Everybody is a winner

Na just time .




Congratulations to my Governor elect . Engr Seyi makinde...


I pray you make use of this Power wisely.
Congratulations Oyo State indigenes , Come here let’s celebrate this victory with Likes and Shares .

If you know you know.

noisy45:
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More soldiers will die

How many have died in this election after Burutai gave them the order to shoot at sight?

Why did people run away from the community where soldiers were killed and are yet to run back?

Let us tell ourselves the truth; you can never win the Military in an armed conflict; All you can do is initial gragra and then the Military will just step up their game and before you know it, bodies start pilling up everywhere.

People will always support you when you're fighting for your right but will withdraw their support when you go past your boundary.

islandmoon:
you think Rivers State is benue state? , the government that deployed army there in large number know well, those boys are soldiers, just go and spend a week anywhere in rivers state, you will understand! they boys are dare devil , Rivers and Akwa Ibom , seem you didnt read the about the killing of 3 soldiers in Abonema on Nairaland about a week ago. that state need heavy prayer and serious rehabilitation programmes for the youths

3 soldiers killed and 16 to 20 people killed by the soldiers in various shootouts with them.

The only thing is that people always claim that those killed by soldiers are innocent people.

Innocent people exchanging bullets with soldiers!

3 Soldiers killed to 16 or 20 militants/thugs killed. Do the maths.

Richdad50:


I warned that this state elections will begin the end of an era of the Jagaban. I heard he was flown in an helicopter to ogbomoso. Pdp has won Oyo and will sweep the state assembly in Ondo. Osun is in play also.

You don't play God and Man at the same time. No matter how high the Sun rises, it must surely settle in the East. Power is transient and he who is humble in power will ride on it for a long time.

Impunity has a limit and even if the govt of the day puts a blind eye, the people never forget. You don't unify a people by a political party, but by an overwhelming development of their communities

Richdad

No it not about Tinubu; the people of Oyo State are settling their score with Ajimobi not Tinubu.

The Governor did them strong thing and he don't know how to talk to his people as he is said to talk arrogantly.

What is all these nonsense! They have turned Governorship election into the party that snatches the most ballot boxes wins!!!!

Dem come add killings ontop am; These things don weak person.