Outrage As Four Teenagers Kill Girl, Burn Head For Money Rituals
By Ernest Nwokolo, Abeokuta; Kunle Akinrinade and Alao Abiodun, The Nation
Police in Ogun State have arrested four teenagers for killing the girlfriend of one of them for money-making ritual.
The suspects, Wariz Oladehinde (17), Abdul Gafar Lukman (19) and Mustakeem Balogun (20), were arrested on Saturday morning by detectives led by the Divisional Police Officer for Adatan, Abiodun Salau, following a tip-off from the head of the community’s security guards, Segun Adewusi.
The fourth suspect, Soliu Manekodunmi (18), who escaped from the scene when his three accomplices were arrested, was later tracked to his hideout and apprehended.
It was learnt that the suspects were sighted burning something suspected to be human head in a local pot, and the strange smell from the pot gave them away to the community’s security guards.
One of the suspects, Soliu Manekodunmi, was said to have volunteered his girlfriend and lured her to the location in Oke-Aregba area of Abeokuta, the state capital, where she was hacked to death and dismembered.
The Police Public Relations Officer for Ogun State, Abimbola Oyeyemi, who disclosed this to newsmen, said the suspects had confessed that what they were burning in the local pot was the head of Soliu’s girlfriend.
Oyeyemi said: “The suspects also confessed that the girl, identified simply as Rofiat, was lured by her boyfriend Soliu to where she was murdered by the four of them, after which they cut off her head and packed the remains in a sack and dumped it in an old building.
“They subsequently led policemen to the building where the dismembered body was recovered and deposited at general hospital mortuary for autopsy.
“The short cutlass and knife used in cutting off the deceased’s head were also recovered.
“The Commissioner of Police, CP Lanre Bankole, who described the action of the suspects as the height of callousness, ordered a massive manhunt for the fleeing boyfriend of the victim by name Soliu.
“Following the matching order given to the DPO of Adatan Division by the Commissioner of Police, the DPO and his men eventually arrested the fleeing suspect in his hideout.
“The CP also ordered the immediate transfer of the suspects to homicide section of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department for discreet investigation with a view to arraigning them in court as soon as possible.”
The action of the teenagers sparked outrage yesterday as many Nigerians on social media described the gruesome actions of the teenagers as “despicable and callous”.
Some others lamented the scourge of ritual killings especially being perpetrated by youths who are carried away by the get-rich-quick syndrome.
