An
horrifying thing happened in Doso village in Doko District of Niger
State when a woman identified 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.
How bizarre! According to Leadership, it was gathered today 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. Continue...
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.
It was also 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.
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.
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