Nigeria – a questionable practice: Police parade suspected ritualists in Oyo State

A weird story from Oyo state, in Nigeria’s South West. The Oyo State Police arrested two men who were in the possession of a freshly cut human head. One of the suspected ritualists admitted that the human skull was to be used for ritual purposes (‘money rituals’).

Oyo State is located in the South West geopolitical zone of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The Federal Republic of Nigeria is divided into six geopolitical zones commonly called zones. 

Oyo State is an inland state and Nigeria’s sixth most populous state (after Kano, Lagos, Katsina, Kaduna and Bauchi states) with an estimated 9 to 10 million people (2024) and ranks 14 by surface area with 28,454 km2

Ibadan is Oyo State’s capital and its most populous city, and Nigeria’s third (after Lagos and Kano). It’s population is estimated at close to 4 million people whereas in its metropolitan area an estimated 6 million people live, mainly Yoruba but also Igbo, Hausa, Edo and Ibibio from other parts of Nigeria. 

The practice of parading suspects of a serious crime is common in Nigeria, but considered unconstitutional by a number of legal experts. I have added a 2016 article elaborating on this view, following the first article below.
(FVDK)

Police parade suspected ritualists in Oyo State

Suspected cultists
(not related to the article)

Published: February 14 or 15, 2024
By: TVC News

The Oyo state police command has arrested two suspects who specialize in using Human Head and other vital Organs for Ritual Purpose.

The suspects were arrested in Saki town, and a human skull was recovered from them.

While addressing newsmen during the parade, the police spokesperson in Oyo state Adewale Osifeso revealed that the human Head was cut off from a freshly exhumed Corpse and a local pot containing some concoctions were recovered from the possession of the suspected Ritualists.

One of the suspects confessed that the harvested Human Skull was from a corpse at burial ground and was to be used for Money Rituals.

Source: Police Parade Suspected Ritualists, Killers Of Retired PS In Oyo

Read also:

Lawyers say parading of suspects unconstitutional

Published: August 28, 2016
By: Vanguard, Nigeria

Some Lagos-based lawyers have condemned parading of arrested suspects by the police, saying it is unconstitutional and damaging to the person involved.

They said that often those paraded were innocent and in the event of their being pronounced innocent by the courts of competent jurisdiction, the police never re-parade them.

Mr Olawale Apanisile, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that parading suspects undergoing investigation was illegal and could not be justified.

Apanisile said that parading suspects before the public and media as criminals was damaging to the reputation and personality of the individual.

He said that it was a violation of Section 34 (1) and 36 (1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999.

According to Apanisile, Section 34 states that every individual is entitled to respect for the dignity of his person and (1) (a) no person shall be subject to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment.

“In a bid to show to the public that the police are working and are up to the task of safeguarding the country, they display suspects like medals and trophies to the media,’’ he said.

The lawyer said that during arrest, investigation and arraignment, the accused should be treated with respect as they were presumed innocent until proven guilty.

“The police and other law enforcement agents should treat an accused the same way they will treat any other law abiding citizens.

“Most Nigerians do not know their fundamental human rights, but if the police had been slammed with law suits by paraded suspects, then such impunity will not be the order of day.

“Some who know their rights are too scared to press charges,’’ he said.

He urged human rights activists to educate and come to the aid of the populace to put an end to the practice of media trial by the police.

“This practice must stop no matter how grievous the crime an accused committed.

“We should leave it to the courts to administer justice so that after the accused has been acquitted or convicted he can go back to living his life in peace,’’ he said.

Apanisile, however, said that the only time the law allowed for an accused to be paraded was during identification parade.

According to him, in identification parade, an accused will be placed with people who have similar physical appearance with him and paraded before witnesses to know if they will recognise the suspect.

“The parading of suspects before newsmen is not obtainable in Britain but in America, they do perpetrators walk commonly known as `perp walk’.

“In Britain, accused are brought to court in vehicle with tinted glasses which makes it impossible for the public to see them,’’ he said.

According to Wikipedia, perp walk is a common custom of American law enforcement, the practice of taking an arrested suspect through a public place at some point after arrest, creating an opportunity for the media to take photographs and video of the event.

Mr Chris Okani, urged the Nigerian police to stop the parade of suspected armed robbers and other alleged criminals before the public prior to arraignment.
Okani said that parading suspects by the police prior to charging them to court for trial and being found guilty was an aberration.

He also noted that a suspect was presumed innocent until proven otherwise by a court of law after full trial.

He said the police was only permitted to parade suspects if there was need for identification of the suspect by a witness who claims to have seen the suspect commit the alleged offence.

Mr Alozie Nwoke said: “The police are usually under pressure to clean up their image before the public and the Federal Government has given rise to this kind of practice.

“Owing to the pressure, suspects are often paraded so as to show that the police are working.

“The police then get some kind of approval that they are doing well but most times they parade innocent persons.

“Our law provides that every suspect is presumed innocent until proven guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction’’.

The legal practitioners decried the act, saying that should the suspects be acquitted, the police would not re-parade them as being innocent.

Source: Lawyers say parading of suspects unconstitutional

Nigeria, Oyo State: Yahoo Boy stabs parents as black magic soap fails to yield fortune

The following is not about a ritual murder or a violent ritualistic act. It gives us an insight into the world of a Yahoo boy and the at times associated belief in the supernatural, the superstition, which also lies at the base of many if not all ritualistic murders. Yahoo boys engage in cybercrime and are notoriously known because of the “419 scam” (named after the Nigerian law’s article making it a punishable crime) or “Nigerian prince scam”.

I’ve reported before on the reported involvement of Yahoo boys in ritualistic crimes. See my posting dated January 9 (2024) including a 2022 statement by the Governor of Plateau State accusing Yahoo Boys being behind the increased ritual killings in this state in central Nigeria.

The reason for including this news article here is to throw some more light on the phenomenon of ‘Yahoo boys’, often mentioned on this site, as well to the pay attention to the general belief in magic by some people. Whether the Yahoo boy in question suffers from a mental illness, as suggested in the article, which may explain his aggressive behavior, is not certain but according to the boy’s father he is a normal person.

It all happened in Ibadan, Oyo State capital.

Oyo State is located in located in the South West geopolitical zone of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. 
The Federal Republic of Nigeria is divided into six geopolitical zones commonly called zones. 

Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones

Ibadan is Oyo State’s capital and its most populous city, and Nigeria’s third (after Lagos and Kano). It’s population is estimated at close to 4 million people whereas in its metropolitan area an estimated 6 million people live, mainly Yoruba but also Igbo, Hausa, Edo and Ibibio from other part of Nigeria.

Oyo State is an inland state and Nigeria’s sixth most populous state (after Kano, Lagos, Katsina, Kaduna and Bauchi states) with an estimated 9 to 10 million people (2024) and ranks 14 by surface area with 28,454 km2.
(webmaster FVDK).

Oyo State: Yahoo Boy stabs parents as black magic soap fails to yield fortune

Published: January 27, 2024
By: Kalu Idika – NB News Band, Nigeria

Mr Daniel Bamidele, a 20-year-old man suspected to be a Yahoo Boy, has been arrested in Oyo State.

The he was nabbed after stabbing his parents on Thursday, January 25.

The Nation reported that Daniel’s mother, Titilayo, reportedly ran out of their home in Apabielesin area of Ibadan, Oyo State with serious injury, calling for help as her son sneaked into their home and attacked her and his father with a machete.

This attracted bystanders who hurriedly rushed into the house, held Daniel down and dispossessed him of the machete he had used to attack his parents.

Speaking after he had been held down and freed his father from his grip, Daniel explained that he had been earning a living from cybercrime otherwise called yahoo business for some time.

He said his parents were aware that he already built a three-bedroom bungalow from the proceeds of the cybercrime.

Daniel said he had promised that he would get a store for his mother and stock it with goods so she could become a big trader once he recorded a breakthrough.

He added that his mother and elder brother colluded to fleece him of the sum of N2.5 million despite the promise he made to get her a store and stock it with goods.

Daniel said, “I purposely lured my mother from a church programme she was attending, and as soon as we arrived home, I attacked her with a knife and was already inflicting cuts on her body when my father tried to save her from me.

“I attacked my father too because if I had not stabbed both of them, they would have succeeded in killing me.”

Speaking further on his reasons for attacking his mother and father with a knife, Daniel accused his mother of giving him a fake name which rendered useless the magic black soap he had secured from the priest of a white garment church.

He also noted that he made his elder brother his next of kin in his bank documentation but the same elder brother had been trying to play smart with his money.

He said, “I am a 200-level student of LAUTECH (Ladoke Akintola University of Technology) and I have built a three-bedroom bungalow from the money I made from doing yahoo business.

“I am angry with my parents, particularly my mother, for giving me a fake name instead of her real name.

“There is a particular black magic soap that I have been using lately. The soap was given to me by the priest of a white garment church named Mathew.

“I was the one who bought a generator for Pastor Mathew’s church around Ona Grammar School in Ogbomosho.

“The soap was meant to bring me good fortune, but there was the need for me to call my mother’s name into it before it could work.

“My mother told me that her name is Titilayo. But when I called the name into the soap, it did not work. Hence, I got angry and decided to stab her.”

Daniel’s mother, Titilayo, however said she did not collect any money from him.

She said, “I was called on the phone to come pick up my son from school at LAUTECH when he started exhibiting mental illness.

“When we got home, his father brought a native medicine home and gave him to use. He slept off after taking the medicine.

“However, when he woke up, he demanded the whereabouts of his phone and I told him I did not take his phone. He landed several blows on me.

“He is a liar; I did not collect any money from him.”

But Bamidele’s father accused his wife of being in the know of everything pertaining to how his son ventured into yahoo business and how he built a house from the money he made from the fraudulent activity.

“My wife was the one that indulged him (Daniel). She knew when her son started building a house, yet she did not tell me,” he said.

Source: Yahoo Boy stabs parents as black magic soap fails to yield fortune

More:

Ibadan: ‘Yahoo Boy’ Stabs Parents Over Failed Black Magic Soap

The internet fraudster, Yahoo boy, Daniel Bamidele who allegedly stabbed his parents

Published: January 27, 2024
By: Leadership News, Nigeria

A 20-year-old internet fraudster, identified as Daniel Bamidele, has attacked and stabbed his parents over his mother’s refusal to reveal her real name, necessary for activating a black ritual soap that was supposed to bring him riches.

The incident occurred in the Bamideles’ Apabielesin home in Ibadan, Oyo State capital, when Daniel, enraged by his mother’s actions, assaulted both his parents with a machete. His mother, Titilayo, managed to escape and raise an alarm, leading to the intervention of bystanders who subdued Daniel and disarmed him.

According to Daniel, his parents were aware of his involvement in cybercrime, from which he claimed to have built a three-bedroom bungalow.

He accused his mother and elder brother of cheating him out of N2.5 million, frustration over his mother providing a false name, which rendered his ritual soap, which he said was given to him by a white garment church priest, ineffective. The soap, he added, was intended to bring good fortune but required his mother’s real name for activation.

“I purposely lured my mother from a church programme she was attending, and as soon as we arrived home, I attacked her with a knife and was already inflicting cuts on her body when my father tried to save her from me,” he said in a report by the Nation.

“I attacked my father too because if I had not stabbed both of them, they would have succeeded in killing me.”

Source: Ibadan: ‘Yahoo Boy’ Stabs Parents Over Failed Black Magic Soap

Map showing Nigeria’s 36 states – Oyo State os located in the southwest.

Nigeria: Insecurity: Government must keep its end in this social contract, says Ekhomu

Yesterday a posted an article entitled ‘Curbing the menace of ritual killings in the southwestern states‘.  Appropriate as it was to draw the attention of our readers to this worrisome and frightening situation, it nevertheless seems useful to paint a more general picture of the security situation in Sub-Saharan Africa’s most populous country.

Everyday Nigerians are facing an extremely dangerous situation consisting of political and criminal violence, ritual murders (‘money-rituals’), abductions, kidnappings, ransom cases,  by terrorists, bandits, political thugs, ritual killers, cultists, criminals, and traditional herdsmen. A personal experience in this respect may illustrate the foregoing. 

A couple of years ago I visited Nigeria for professional reasons. My employer, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, had made the use of a special, armored car mandatory for government officials when traveling in Abuja or the rural areas. The only other countries with a similar precaution and obligation were Iraq and Afghanistan. No wonder, that last year the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) ranked Nigeria the third most dangerous county on earth, after Afghanistan and Iraq.

Therefore, I consider it useful to get to know the observations and warnings of Dr. Ona Ekhomu, a well-known Nigerian security expert, when reading about and analyzing ritual murders in the Nigeria. As repeatedly said before, Nigeria ranks number One with respect to ritual murders in Africa, but this should nevertheless be judged against the background of an alarming security situation in general (webmaster FVDK). 

Insecurity: Government must keep its end in this social contract, says Security expert, Dr. Ona Ekhomu

Dr. Ona Ekhomu

Published: January 2, 2021
By: The Guardian News, Nigeria

I REALISTICALLY expect the security situation in Nigeria to worsen this year. Given that the national and sub-national governments have not taken the time to understand the scope of threat and risk spectrum, there is no serious effort to resolve the security conundrum. 

The authorities have continued to rely on intuitive thinking in a situation that requires critical thinking and complex problem-structuring and problem-solving methodologies. 

Therefore, the security situation will worsen because a wound that is not treated becomes an ulcer. In research design, we say that past is prologue to the future. So, what is the evidence of insecurity in Nigeria? Amnesty International recently published that in the first six months of last year, over 1,126 persons were killed mostly in the rural areas where “the authorities have left communities at the mercy of rampaging gunmen.”

According to Dataphyte Nigeria, over 70,000 Nigerians have been killed in the last nine years in acts of criminal violence. The Boko Haram/ISWAP insurgency has killed over 37,500 persons, displaced 2.5 million and created 244,000 refugees. In the first quarter of 2019, Nigeria recorded over 685 kidnap for ransom cases. 

Clearly, this statistic will pale into insignificance when you consider 4th quarter of last year, where in one fell swoop, over 344 students were abducted in Kankara, Katsina State. 

In December alone, about 26 travelers were seized by bandits along Benin-Auchi road and marched into the forest at Igieduma in Edo State. The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Abubakar Sa’ad III, at the Nigerian Inter-Religious Council meeting in Abuja in November last year, warned that the security situation in northern Nigeria had gotten out of hand and bandits (terrorists) had overrun the region. 

He said in some parts of the north, bandits walk around openly carrying AK47 rifles without being challenged by security agents. The Sultan revealed that 76 persons were killed in a Sokoto community, yet it went unreported. The frequency of kidnappings, killings, murders had become high that it was not news worthy anymore.

The Global Terrorism Index (GTI) for last year ranked Nigeria the third most terrorism impacted nation on earth. With this ranking, Nigeria is rubbing shoulders with Afghanistan and Iraq.

The security scorecard for Nigeria last year is very poor. Government performed below expectation in its most important duty of keeping citizens safe, as kidnappers, bandits, killer herdsmen, cultists, ritual killers and political thugs had a field day at the expense of citizens.

The Northwest terrorism (euphemistically referred to as banditry) intensified with several communities in Zamfara, Katsina, Niger, Kaduna and Sokoto states deserted due to incessant attacks and wanton killings and kidnappings by the aggressors. The so-called bandits have resorted to levying farmers millions of naira to harvest their farms. The situation in the Northwest is likely to trigger a food crisis in Nigeria this year. 

In the Northeast region, Boko Haram/ISWAP insurgency continued to flourish, with terrorists attacking targets at will and shedding blood of innocent citizens without compunction. 

The chief driver of insecurity in Nigeria is the incapacity of security agencies to prevent attacks against soft targets. The philosophy of the security agencies is to take casualties and then counter-attack. 

The agencies are supposed to design an architecture that will prevent attacks in the first place. However, due to severe resource constraints and leadership factors, they adopt the counter-punch strategy. In other words, the authorities are adopting a law enforcement approach to a terrorist threat. 

In dealing with terrorism, the best approach is prevention and disruption of plots. Any time a terrorist attack occurs, the effects are devastating. Every incident of terror (mass kidnap of travelers, mass abduction of school children, suicide bombing, roadside bombing, attack on traditional rulers on the highway, brutal rape of female travelers, killing of farmers in the bush, even cannibalism by killer herdsmen, etc.) is a statement of grave insecurity. 

Many Nigerians avoid road travels because of fear of terrorist attacks along the Kaduna-Abuja highway, Lokoja-Okene highway or Benin-Auchi highway. These are killing fields where bandits emerge from the foliage and open fire on total strangers, not a targeted attack to rob them and then kidnap the survivors of the initial attack for ransom. Those unable to pay ransom are liable to be executed. In some instances, ransom is paid and the victim is killed.

The unfortunate trends in insecurity will continue and probably be exacerbated. What are the trends?
There would be an increase in highway kidnappings. It is a low risk and high yield venture that government does not seem willing to confront head on.

There would be an intensification of Northwest banditry, as the vast landscape is largely ungoverned. A situation where bandits could hide 344 students in Rugu Forest is unfortunate.

The Northeast insurgency is likely to intensify. The new leadership of ISWAP is quite bloodthirsty and would continue to tax communities and kill persons without justification.

Attacks on Army Supercamps by ISWAP will continue. Having succeeded in overrunning military bases and posts, the terrorists would take on the more hardened targets, like Supercamps.

Ansaru terrorist attacks would multiply and flourish in Kaduna and Kogi states. These terrorists are likely to infiltrate south into Edo and Delta states. Security planners in those South-South states are urged to be forward thinking.

The epidemic of terrorist violence would continue with piracy and illegal oil bunkering in the Niger Delta region. The IPOB agitators would continue to attack Police personnel and soft targets in the Southeast.

Cult violence would continue to claim lives in Edo, Delta, Rivers and Cross River states.
Ritual killings would continue to flourish in the Southwest states.

Source: Insecurity: Government must keep its end in this social contract, says Ekhomu