*3 arrested in connection with the crime
By BASHIR ADEFAKA
In a video made available to The DEFENDER, Mustakeem Balogun said, “We wanted to use just her head alone for money ritual. Soliu strangled her and he told me to assist him and we cut off her head.”
The police in Ogun State has arrested three teenage boys in connection with the killing of a girl for money ritual purposes in Oke-Aregba area of Abeokuta, the state capital.
An eyewitness account said the slain girl, identified simply as Rofiat, a resident of Idi-Ape; was a girlfriend to one Soliu, who along with the other three cut off her head for money.
Soliu was said to have lured the girl to his room, where he held her down and asked one of his three friends to slaughter her with a knife.
The arrested suspects were identified as Wariz Oladeinde, 17, from Kugba, Abdulgafar Lukman, 19, from Kugba and Mustakeem Balogun, 20, from Bode Olude, all in Abeokuta.
Soliu, who is believed to be around 20 years old of age, was said to be the boyfriend of the girl, who ran away after knowing the three friends had been arrested. He was, however, later arrested.
The source said: “They killed Rofiat, cut her head, packed the headless body in a sack and started burning the head in a pot. They told the police in the presence of a mammoth crowd that they wanted to use it for money ritual.
“The police have taken the body away to a mortuary,” the source said on Saturday.
In a video made available to The DEFENDER, Mustakeem Balogun said, “We wanted to use just her head alone for money ritual. Soliu strangled her and he told me to assist him and we cut off her head.”
The suspected criminals were detected by some vigilantes while they were burning the Rafiat’s head in a local pot in the early hours of Saturday 29 January, 2022 and who alerted the Nigeria Police Force.
The police swung into action and arrested the suspects around 3am.
The DEFENDER reports that it was after their arrest that the suspects led the police to a room believed to be Soliu’s room in an old building, where remains of the deceased were packed inside a sack.
Inside the room, the police recovered, along with the headless body, one short cutlass, a knife used in cutting off the girl’s head and a pot containing her burnt head.
In the meantime, our message seeking official confirmation of the crime sent to the Ogun State Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Abimbola Oyeyemi, was yet to be responded to as at press time.
Another also goes to Spokesperson of Zone 2 of the Nigerian Police Force, Hauwa Labara, with an addition enquiry on what the zonal command is doing to end the rampant ritual related crimes in, particularly, Lagos and Ogun states axis.
Details later…
