On September 16, 2019 I posted an article on a wave of allegedly ritualistic murders in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, and a protest demonstration of (mainly) women who felt threatened and insecure. There seems to be good news: a suspect has been arrested. The article presented below makes it clear that we are dealing here not with a case of ritual murders in the traditional sense, but with rituals performed by a serial killer, a maniac, who meanwhile confessed being guilty of at least seven murders.
The objectives of this website is not to expose crimes committed by disturbed people, maniacs, but what matters is the link with superstition: the belief that committing a ritualistic murder and using body parts to make ‘juju’ or ‘muti’ are instrumental in increasing one’s wealth, prestige or power.
Since I want to inform the readers of this site as correct and objective as possible, I post here the article concerned on the arrest of a suspect and the (likely) real character of the murders of which he is being accused.
(webmaster FVDK).
Published: September 18, 2019
By: New24, AFP
Nigerian police investigating the murders of at least eight women lured to hotels in the southern city of Port Harcourt said they had arrested a suspect.
Five deaths in the last month have sparked fears of “serial killings” targetting suspected sex workers, and a wave of protests by women activists in the city, the capital of oil-rich Rivers State.
Officers have arrested a suspect who had made “useful confessions” and they were pursuing other accomplices, Rivers State police commissioner Mustapha Dandaura said in a statement late Tuesday.
They suspected the murders were for ritual practices, he added.
“After the killings, a white cloth material is rolled on the victims’ necks or waists. So, there is an element of cultism in all the killings in the hotels that have taken place,” Dandaura said.
“The serial killer normally drugs his victims and thereafter, he strangles them,” he added.
Although local reports suggested more than 10 women had been killed, Dandaura said they had only eight verifiable cases, with the first of the victims murdered in July.
In recent days, women took to the streets of Port Hartcourt in a series of protests calling for better police protection.
Outrage at the killings and the police response spilled over on to social media after police told protestors that women should abandon prostitution to avoid being targetted.
“We must go back to try to educate them (women) and discourage them from going into prostitution because that is how they fall victim to these crimes,” deputy commissioner of police, Chuks Enwonwu told demonstrators, according to local reports.
Protesters and activists condemned the police response, saying all women were vulnerable to the rising attacks.
Prostitution is illegal in Nigeria, and police have enforced restrictions on hotels in the city, forcing hotel owners to install closed-circuit cameras to monitor activity or face closure.
Source: Nigerian police hold suspect after 8 women killed in hotels
