Just when we thought we had heard it all, another gory story of horror and man’s inhumanity to man breaks out from somewhere.
This time it is at Doso Village in Doko District of Niger State, where a woman known as Fatima Saraka Mohammed slaughtered her nine-year-old grandson, Mohammed
, shared his roasted flesh and drank his blood in connivance with two other people in an apparent act of cannibalism.LEADERSHIP Friday gathered that little Mohammed was always attached to his grandmother, and whenever he was not with his parents, he would always be found nestling in her arms or sleeping beside her; he was quite fond of her.
But how tragic, and ironic, that it is this same grandmother that would turn around and end the little boy’s life by this heinous act, something that can only be heard of only in fairytale books. Many people describe it as heartless and some cannot believe that a human being, in his or her normal senses, could be that cruel to any child, much less her own blood.
The search for the missing Mohammed
The story started when the father of the boy, Mohammed Doko, could not locate his son after he came back from an outing. Usually, the little boy would be the first to welcome him any time he went out.
LEADERSHIP Friday’s findings revealed that as soon as this ritual was not done, Mohammed Doko was prompted to commence an intense search for the boy, a search that went from minutes to hours, and from days to weeks, but the boy was nowhere to be found. The search, it was learnt, even took him to neighbouring villages but when the search did not yield any positive outcome, he became even more agitated.
LEADERSHIP Friday also gathered that in the process of the search, one of the villagers told the father of the child that he saw the child with his grandmother some days ago, when she was leading him along a nearby bush path.
Further investigations by the boy’s father, it was gathered, actually led the missing boy to his grandmother’s place about 50 metres away from his own compound in Doso village, invariably making it easy for the boy to always be with the grandmother.
It was at this stage that Fatima was confronted by the villagers. At first, she vehemently denied any knowledge of his whereabouts, or even that she had seen the boy before his disappearance.
After a lot of pressure by the villagers, and threats of calling in the police, Fatima finally caved in and admitted that the boy was taken to a nearby bush where she had invited one Zhitsu Aliyu, a 38-year old man, to help her slaughter her grandson and collect the blood in a bowl, all this in connivance with her friend, Amina Wusa Mohammed. Both of them, she said, belonged to the same cult of witches.
Fatima narrated how she and her collaborators each took part in drinking young Mohammed’s blood and having their share of his flesh after roasting it.
The villagers carefully searched the crime scene and recovered the knife used in killing the boy and the blood-stained clothes confirming the dastardly act.
Consequently, the villagers invited the policemen in Bida division and handed Fatima and her collaborators over to the detectives.
The three suspects were later moved to the office of the Anti-Homicide squad at the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID), Niger State Police Command, where the investigation into the matter commenced.
Fatima and the two collaborators also allegedly confessed to the police that she actually abducted her nine-year-old grandson for several days before slaughtering him.
Fatima confessed that she was aided in slaughtering her grandson by Zhitsu Aliyu and Amina Wusa Mohammed, 65, with whom she shared membership of a witchcraft cult.
The three also said they collectively shared the flesh of the boy among them and drank his blood to satisfy their witchcraft spirit and that they had arranged to present their grandchildren and children to the cult when it was their turn to do so.
“I am the first to kill my grandchild, and this is our first time. It was God that exposed us,” Fatima told the policemen at their headquarters in Minna.
She said that they regretted their action and blamed it on the spirit that pushed them, praying that God should forgive them, because they now know that what they did was inhuman.
The police public relations officer, Ibrahim Abiodun Gambari, who spoke on the incident, said that investigation was ongoing and that the culprits had been arraigned before the court of law.
The suspects were arraigned at the Chief Magistrate’s Court, presided over by Alhaji Hameed Ahmed Bima.
At the court, the presiding magistrate could not hide his disdain for the act and subjected them to serious questioning. The charge sheet was read to them and they all pleaded guilty to the three-count charge of conspiracy, culpable homicide and cannibalism, which contravene Section 97, 218 and 221 of the penal code.
The chief magistrate described the deeds of the three suspects as heartless and ungodly and told them that they will surely pay for their sins here on earth.
No comments