Category: Arts & Life

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has given a hint that the Federal government is now prepared to pay special attention to creativity in the country.  The Minister who has been in the forefront of the campaign to focus attention on the development and tapping of the huge resources in the culture sector to rebuild the economy of Nigeria, made this remark recently in Lagos.  It was during the occasion of the staging of Death and the King’s Horseman by Professor Wole Soyinka.

Part of the merits of the play is that it was written forty years ago.  But to date the play is still relevant in the day-to-day happenings in Nigeria.  It was due to its importance that the National Troupe of Nigeria in collaboration with the Minister chose the play to mark the thirty years of the Nobel Prize in Literature won by Soyinka in 1986 and to also use it to enliven the sector for Lagos at 50.

Mohammed did not only commend Soyinka for his futuristic play anchoring it on the role of the king’s horseman once the king is dead, he also encouraged other writers to always pull their resources together for the good of the society.  An elated Mohammed made it clear that the federal government has now chosen not to neglect the Art sector so as to boast it to further enhance sources of national revenue.

Writers, he said, should continue to play the kind of role Soyinka has been playing so that in no time Nigeria would produce another Nobel laureate.  For him, stories like this mirror the society and help to point out areas that enhance the culture of the people.  Therefore, the death of the King’s horseman which is an old tradition  which was punctured by the British colonial masters in the days of yore, shows that people in all circumstances are poised to react to events around them.

In the play, Elesin was too cowardly to play his traditional or god-ordained role to help the set pattern of the society to continue to function properly.  His cowardly role created the avenue for the British to intervene. Not only that.  The interregnum also led to the death of Elesin’s son, a promising young medical doctor who, in order to save the society and remove shame from his family offered to die in his father’s place.

Double tragedy though, but the incident almost put an end to the British recalcitrant mediation in the affairs of the locals.  Elesin took his life, the British could not save anybody while the people continued to mourn these tragedies.

For Elesin, the pleasures of life, the sweetness of his new wife and the allure to continue to wallow in its many euphoric tendencies helped to scuttle his resolve to die.  The lesson is clear: you can’t have your cake and eat it or eat your cake and still have it.  Elesin enjoyed the huge beauty of office, but when it was time to give back to society, he shrieked his role.  Consequently, this set in motion other chains of unfortunate happenings.  It was terrible; it was tragedy.

In directing the play, Mike Anyanwu said he chose to alter one or two scenes to give the play its altruistic flavour.  He changed the market scene where he ensured that most of the remarkable scenes took place.  He ascribed more roles to the women.  Yet, he ensured that the activities were limited in order to truly depict a society that was mourning its king.  The king was dead, yet Elesin wanted to marry again.  The women harassed and embarrassed him.  Even though he ended up marrying the lady, that was the source of his downfall, his undoing.

The director of the Troupe, Akin Adejuwon also reiterated the role of the National Troupe as the apex theatre troupe of Nigeria to continue to fulfill its statutory role to the nation.  This was why the play was chosen to bring out its import in a society where cultures are fizzling out gradually.  It is now time to redraw interest to plays that have examples to offer to the society.

Leaves, fresh and dried, tree barks, calabashes, clay pots, wooden images, tree barks, even dried animal skins are some of the things you behold when you visit a herb seller’s shop. They provide alternative medicine and are reputed for their affordability. But that does not seem to be the case anymore, as even they are crying out over poor sales, as a result of the current recession. Lateef Sanni reports

Herb sellers or elewe-omo, as they are called in the local Yoruba parlance, is a profession dominated mostly by women of the Yoruba ethnic group. In most cases, they are born into it, while some joined as apprentices to learn the ropes and gather experience, such that in no time, they can tell the difference among the different but sometimes identical-looking leaves. They also imbibe the use and efficacy of each leaf, stem or bark vis-à-vis the different illnesses.

Said Alhaja Iyabode Alase, a herb dealer in Isolo Road, Mushin, Lagos, “Elewe-omo are healers, who provide alternative medical care by using herbs to cure illnesses like malaria, jedijedi (pile), oka ori (anterior fontanelle, common in children), eela (a common infection that causes skin peeling and stooling in infants); we also care for pregnant women and prepare them for childbirth. We administer herbs on pregnant women to make the baby healthy, but that does not stop them from going to the hospital/clinic. In the clinic, they are told how old the pregnancy is, they check the position of the baby and how well it is growing; we also don’t give herbs to them without knowing how old the pregnancy is. The herbs we give them prevent them from giving birth to premature babies and also help the babies fight jaundice and other infant diseases.”

Corroborating her position, Alhaja Tawa Sadiq, a herb seller in Ilasa market said “We are life savers. When children are brought to us, we have to take care of them. Some may have gone to the hospital for treatment but when they realise they don’t have enough money to pay hospital bills, they bring them to us and when we recognise the ailment, we offer our service.”

For years, the local herb sellers have therefore come to the rescue of the common man. They open for service as early as 7 o’clock in the morning and close as late as 6/7pm. Their services, which include ‘diagnoses’ and herbal treatment, are quite cheap, compared to the hospitals and are well patronised. One would therefore expect that their clientele would be made up of mainly poor people, but the women say they cut across all classes.

“We are not only approached by the poor; the rich also come here for treatment. I have customers from the upper class. Even nurses do come to me. I even export my herbs abroad on demand (London, America, Canada etc.)”

Alhaja Sadiq said the ailments amongst the wealthy include “diabetes, high blood pressure, impotency, belly fat etc” and that these are caused mainly by what they eat and drink.

She however debunked the insinuation that they must be reaping a lot from customer patronage in these days of recession, since those who are not able to pay exorbitant hospital bills and drugs may be turning to them. The Nation gathered that their situation is no better. Market research revealed that majority of them are also suffering from the hardship resulting from the economy, as the poor people, who patronize them more, are the most affected.

Alhaja Balogun of Ilasa Market said though they get customers, who otherwise would have gone to the hospitals, it has not in any way significantly increased their sales.

She especially complained of the distances they have to cover to get their stocks. “Most of the people that bring our goods always complain about high transportation fare, thereby selling to us at high prices.”

Her neighbor, Alhaja Sadiq added that the herbs and other accessories that they buy are now extremely expensive. She also said, “We don’t make sales like before. Moreover, unlike before when we can easily get leaves, barks and other items around our homes or along the way, times have changed. We don’t have bushes anymore, as everywhere has transformed into buildings. As a result, we buy from suppliers, who travel long distances to supply us and complain about transportation fare. To make matters worse, we get customers, who come to us desperately in need of help, but do not have money to pay.”

Alhaja Alase gave an instance of when a child was brought to her shop by the father and some nurses. “The child was suffering from rashes, which had spoilt his skin. But the father had no money and the mother had left him, so I had no choice but to take it up as a charity. I gave them some herbs for drinking, bathing and another to add to his cream. I also told them to come back after a month for observation and possibly further treatment.”

She also showed this reporter a text message from another customer, Funmilayo, which read: “Mummy, with your help, my baby (now) sleep well, may everything that God give you be the source of your happiness and may you live long and see your children to 4th generation.”

Alase therefore appealed for support for the sector. “I am pleading for government’s support; true we may be talking of civilisation, but we’ve heard that countries like China, Ghana, India etc are also into herb business. I want the government to assist us by sending our children to these countries to gather knowledge about herbs production and preservation. We need storage facilities for our stocks. We also buy animals like chameleon, tortoise and pigeons. We use these things to treat the citizens and by doing this, we are helping the government in the area of health.”

The herb sellers also spoke about the challenges they face dealing with people from different tribes, especially language. Alase spoke of an occasion, when a Hausa man came to her shop to get some things but she could not identify any of the items due to the difference in languages. She revealed that they eventually had to resort to description, which can be dangerous, as some of the leaves can be identical.

Even though she is married to an army officer, Alase revealed that she has sold herbs everywhere her husband has been posted to. “My children are into the business, they go to school and come back to assist me, just like I did for my parent. It is only in the olden days that people see our profession as being primitive. I have senators’ wives and commissioners as friends. I also have friends in the local government. In fact I’m proud of my profession and I am ready to stand anywhere to say this.”

Customers’ testimonies

Blessing, a student of Lagos State University (LASU), but resident in Agege, is of the opinion that there are some illnesses one does not need to treat with other medication except herbs. “I am a witness to that. Before going to the herb seller, I had spent a week at a general hospital over the same matter without any significant improvement. It was when I  went to a herb seller that I bought the medicine that I used and my baby is fine today. She’s now healthy and eating very well. However, when you are using it, you should use your head. You don’t take overdose. The reason people don’t value those things is because they perceive that they lack standard measurement or dosage. When you use them with measure, they work.”

Ngozi, a trader, spoke of how a herbal medicine she took, cured her of a toilet infection, which even drugs given to her at a hospital couldn’t treat. She said “the infections kept coming back, so I had to use herbs and it worked well for me.”

Kolawole Odubiyi, a car mechanic in Papa-Ajao, Mushin, Lagos, also testified to the efficacy of herbs. “I take herbal mixtures and it has helped me a lot. Due to the nature of my work, which requires me to bend all the time, I buy jedi concoction to get rid of pains in my joints, thereby making me healthy and fit to do my work.” He said herbs work perfectly for him, although he complements it with tablets.

Odubiyi added that he has been taking the concoction for over five years, and has never had any complication because he takes it only when he is feeling weak, aching or has malaria. “I can’t compare hospital treatments with herbs because agbo has been in existence long before hospitals. Our parents use it, they know the doses and I was brought up with it. I am not condemning the hospitals because I use their drugs too; I am just saying some ailments are best treated locally.”

Ugochukwu Okafor, who sells motor wind screens on Ojekunle Street, Papa Ajao Mushin, however said he does not like taking herbs. “I don’t like taking herbs. When I see people taking herbs, I often wonder if they know how the herbs are being made. When I’m sick, I go to the hospitals for treatment. Though some of the herbs work well, I don’t like them because one may be given a drug meant for another ailment. We are now civilised; I believe one should go to the hospital for test, even if he has to go to herb sellers. Most herb sellers operate on guess work and I think that is dangerous.”

Performance poet, Evelyn Osagie was the cynosure of all eyes last week, as she presented her highly motivating poem, Women Arise to a select audience at the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence event held at the America Consulate office in Lagos. Gboyega Alaka was there

Although it was a programme laced with lots of talks and discussion to press home campaigns against gender-based violence against women and girls, with frontline activists such as Mrs. Laila St. Matthew Daniel of ACT Generation, Dr. Joe Odumakin of the Women Arise for Change Initiative (unavoidably absent and represented), Princess Olufemi Kayode of the Media Concern for Women and Children Initiative and a host of other discussants, it was performance poet, Evelyn Osagie’s rendition of her ‘Women Arise’ poem that eventually sank home the various points and electrified the moderate hall inside the American Consulate office in Lagos.

Probably scheduled deliberately as the last act of the day, Osagie’s poem began with a brief drama skit, depicting violence in the home between a husband and a wife, played by Gboyega Alaka and Abiodun Adeboye, followed by a refrain of powerful and inspiring six lines, which also formed the last stanza of the poem.

Osagie, in the poem, employed imageries such as ‘cloud’, ‘broom,’ ‘iroko,’ ‘moon,’ ‘aso-ebi’ as metaphors for strength, unity, diligence, hope, positive intervention and empowerment, which the 16 Days Activism Against gender-based Violence advocates.

The six-stanza poem is divided into three parts: the first two highlights the current situation in the society, where violence against women is the order of the day; the second part (the second and third stanzas), highlights who and what women represents in society, while the third part (the fifth and sixth stanzas), advocates all-inclusive proactive steps and positive intervention to change the trend by showing where the womenfolk globally ought to be.

The high points of the five-minute performance would have to be the fifth and sixth stanza, for the inspiration and energy that they exuded.

In the fifth stanza, participants were made to hold both hands of the person nearest to them, look into their eyes, and chant the highly motivating lines of:  Women Arise/Show your true colours…colour of your strength/Be a pillar for mankind/A tower for that sister…that daughter…that mother/Women Arise/Colour your dream…Colour your home/Colour your world/You are stronger than the colour that you show.

The sixth stanza, which is also the refrain, had participants forming an unbreakable chain by joining hands, while chanting, to demonstrate the strength in unity: Women Arise/Gather like Clouds/Become like a broom/Stand tall like Iroko/Shine like Moon/We are stronger than the colour we show

Evelyn Osagie is a culture and art correspondent with The Nation newspapers.

Words, spoken, sung and written, are averitable garden of creativity that the organisers of the monthly Guest Writer Session have tended, nurtured and celebrated in all their fecund, and variated  glory for the past eight years.

The October 29  evening’s stroll through that garden led us to the sharp sweet aroma of an author’s first

flowering, through the earthy sounds of deep thinking, soul rocking modern folk music and on to the thorny cacti of desert-born poetry.

With her reading from “The Crippled Eagle” her debut, Doris Malgwi gave warning of her determination to master the garish, often blood red petals of her chosen metier, the crime thriller also known as pulp fiction.  A genre that makes little or no claim to elitist status, the crime thriller is typically fast-paced, high adrenaline  ‘action’ homily on crime and corruption in high and low places and Mrs. Malgwi and her heroine , a Baju girl with guts named Kaingchat, delivered on all fronts.

It is not this writer’s place to give “The Crippled Eagle”a blurb but publishers Omojojolo Emotion Press packaged her opus quite elegantly and Mrs. Malgwi gave her yarn of derring-do and danger a sheen that marks her as a name to watch out for.  It would be remiss of one not to point out that the novel shares a somewhat less savoury trait of the pulp fiction genre, less than perfect proofing and editing. It is not so bad as to mar the thrilling experience but a poodle popping up on the very first page where a puddle was meant to be is a distraction. The kind that will not show up we hope in here eagerly awaited sequel to her exciting debut.

 No garden worth its name would be without song and on this stroll it was singer, composer, songwriter and baker, Ashida that wove the magic of impassioned folk song and social commentary into the ambience. Baritoned and deep thinking Ashida Dele brings to mind the hopeful subversives of the hippy era in a way that is young and fresh and now.

 Much like the pioneer folk song Noble Laureate, this gift to the music industry from Ondo state layers his unique development-focus into the hybrid of highlife and what is best termed Middle belt soft rock. Indeed the strains of the high plateau on which he spent much of his youth were plain to be heard from his guitar play, and in the cadence of his vocals.

A true minstrel of his times, Ashida asks the deeper questions of us. In his rendition of his latest single  Africans “ he asks us to reconsider the murky direction we seem to be charging towards and the frenzied pace we are scurrying nowhere with.

Then came the desert blooms. The impassioned poetry of Musa  Idris Okpanachi transited the audience from the pondering of the errors of our ways as a society to staring bleakly at the agonizing consequences of not learning from our myriad mistakes.

His offering from the strikingly named collection of his poems Music of the Dead” was a vivid blossom of the pain and triumph of parenting and persevering in the Boko Haram ravaged north-east.

The  love song “Shareef” was emblazoned with the rich vocabulary of a doctorate in English language and spoke in intensely personal tones of a universal that is the bedrock of humanity . The love of parent for son, and  the hope of one generation for the continuation of the lineage.

His story reads like fiction. But for Adewale, a high school IT teacher in the Alakuko area of Lagos, his escape from the den of ritual killers was and uncomfortable brush with death. Now back in the comfort of his home, he tells his horror story, albeit reluctantly, to Gboyega Alaka

Be warned, this is not a made up story. It is not one of those tales strewn together by fiction writers to satisfy the human thirst for weird stories and diabolism; yet it is one you’re almost going to dismiss with a wave of the hand as one of those far away stories. Even if you believe it, you’re most probably going to say a silent prayer and wish it away. For Adewale (not real name) however, it is no longer a far away story; but one as real as the skin on his neck.

For his personal safety, Adewale had demanded for maximum protection from this writer before settling down for this interview. The horror he beheld at the hand of his ritual kidnapper captors, he said, is the sort that still rattles him to the marrow; and he does not put it beyond them to come tracking and visiting deadly harm on him. After what he saw them do to fellow human beings during those long, endless hours in the forest, he just cannot put anything beyond them. It is for this reason that his face has been blurred (see image). The name of the school, where he works as a computer teacher, has also been deliberately obliterated to further shield him.

His story

It happened on November 6, 2016. I’m a computer teacher in a popular secondary school along the Abule Egba, Toll-gate, Sango-Ota axis and I am married with a child. On this particular day, I needed to quickly dash to Sango to buy a whiteboard for a client. I boarded a yellow bus from Alakuko for Sango. The bus was filled up and I was probably the last to get on it. As usual, the conductor was busy warning passengers to ‘enter with (their) change,’ for which I told him I had N200 note with me. He said ‘no problem’ and that when we get there, we would sort it out. Looking back, that response was loaded, but at the time, it meant little to me. The bus got to Toll-gate bus stop and nobody disembarked. As we approached Adalemo, one of the men suddenly brought out a gun. Immediately, my heart skipped and I said to myself, ‘This is one chance bus’. One of them, sitting right beside me, said ‘bring out everything on you.’ So we brought out our phones, the money I was to use to buy the board for my client and other valuables. They even confiscated my wallet and everything inside. As we speak, I don’t have any kind of identification or phone. Other passengers in the bus also complied. Our expectation was that they would drop us off somewhere; but the driver climbed the Sango Bridge and continued on the journey. So, we assumed that they were going over the bridge because Sango is a busy area and they wouldn’t want to risk us giving them away to the crowd. I thought they would drop us off one or two bus stops after, but to our dismay, the bus continued. At this point, one of us made an attempt to shout, but they warned him sternly and threatened to kill him if he as much as made a sound. They also extended the warning to every one of us in the bus, threatening to waste our lives, if we tried anything funny.

At this point, I said, this is serious. I began to pray fervently inside me for God to intervene. After a while, the bus veered into a forest and that was the last I remembered. Because I’m not familiar with that axis (we were now in Ogun State), I cannot tell the point at which we veered into the forest. I only regained my consciousness when we got to their destination, a thick forest, with a house, a lone one-storey building.

The bus screeched to a stop and we were herded out like sheep. It was then I discovered that we were only six passengers in the bus. Others were members of the gang; even the driver and the conductor. Then they tied our hands to the back; they also tied our legs and dumped us in a cage. They left us there for about two hours, and though they did not lock the cage, we could not escape, because we’d been tied. So all I could do was pray. I said within me “Oh God What is this? Why are you allowing this to happen to me? Please save me from these people.”Then they came back, ordered us to take off our clothes, went inside again and then four men and two women came back and scrapped our hair. Then they told us to sit down and went away for a few minutes.

Soon after, a rough looking guy with bushy hair came back, seized one of us, the elderly man among us, took him into the house, brought him back and right before our very eyes, slaughtered him like a cow. He also severed his head in the process. I was horrified and went numb with shock. By far, that was the most gruesome thing I’ve ever seen in my life. One of the two women among us screamed in horror. You know how it is with women; she could not bear the sight. Then the man, the executioner, looked at us and said “I brought him here, so you all can see the fate that awaits you.”

I asked myself, so this is the end for me? This is how I will end up in this life? As these thoughts were running through my mind, the men came over again, seized another man and took him into that house. I’m deliberately using the ‘that house’ because it seemed like whoever was to be slaughtered, had to be taken into the house, perhaps for certain ritual purposes. As they were taking the second guy, he shouted and struggled, because he had seen what they did to the first guy. But it amounted to nothing, as it was clear that there was no help in sight.

They brought him back a short while after, and like the first man, he was slaughtered. After each slaughtering, a woman would come, escorted by two guys, to carry the body and the head. Only God knows the kind of knife they were using, but it was so sharp that it was able to severe the head from the body almost seamlessly.

At this point, I gave up. Surely, this was the end, I thought. So I just started praying that “God, let me just reign with you in your kingdom.” I was also praying for mercy. I said “God just have mercy on me. I don’t want to suffer in this world and still continue the suffering in the hereafter.”

Indeed, I would have been the third person to be slaughtered. Meanwhile, the women who were both elderly, probably married, were just weeping and bemoaning their fate. We, the men, were mostly young, save for the elderly man that had been killed. My worst fear happened. I was seized like the two men and whisked towards ‘that house’, which I can now term ‘gate-way to death.’ Suddenly, the executioner stopped, came closer to me, looked me straight in the eyes with some kind of bitterness and untied my hands. At that moment, I was deeply scared. I even wondered if my own death would be different from that of the others. …And then he said (in Yoruba), pointing, “Take this way, run.”

Of course the import of what he said didn’t sink, so I didn’t move. I actually thought I didn’t hear right, because I couldn’t understand how he could suddenly change at the eleventh hour and tell me to go. I even thought he was going to shoot me from behind. He then made the statement again and said, “I said take this way, run.” At that point, I didn’t need any more prodding. I simply took to my heels. Even as I ran, I kept looking over my shoulders until I was sure I was out of sight.  Still, I kept running. I ran in the forest for almost four hours. By the time I emerged to a main road, it was nearly dark. Meanwhile I boarded the bus around 11am. The first person I saw was a woman. I believe it was God that sent her to me. Initially she wanted to run. I wouldn’t blame her, because I was only in boxer’ shorts and looking really rough and dirty. In fact I can tell you that I was gone. I was not alive in the real sense of being alive. She must have thought that I was some mad fellow. But I summoned courage and told her in Yoruba to “Please wait”. When I thought she didn’t understand Yoruba, because she didn’t make any move, I repeated myself in English. Then she hesitated but still kept her distance. I told her nothing was wrong with me and that she should help me and cover me with clothes because anyone who saw me in that almost naked state would assume that I was some lunatic. There and then, she gave me the wrapper she was wearing to cover my body. Soon, people started gathering to hear my story. Most of them were agitated. They asked me to describe the place and I told them it was somewhere deep in the bush, but the truth is I couldn’t remember how I arrived the main road. It was later that I discovered that the place where I emerged was a town called Arigbajo; I think it’s not very far from Ifo.

Merely seeing me, some of the men already suspected my plight. Some went into the forest, but came back without success. I wasn’t surprised. To get there, they would have to spend more than a few minutes. The interesting part is that my story was not altogether strange to them. Some said they’d been hearing stories like that and earnestly wished they could somehow burst the evil gang and expose them.

As I speak, I don’t know the fate of the other three people I left behind, but I suspect they must have gone the way of the two men. I slept over in the woman’s house, but told her I needed to leave as early as possible the following day, to put my wife’s mind at rest, because I knew she would be anxious already.

The ritualists

When asked if he could describe the ritualists, especially those doing the slaughtering, Adewale said “As far as I’m concerned, I would not describe them as humans anymore. For people to be slaughtering fellow human beings like cows, then there is a big question mark on their humanity. And these were very young guys; and they did it with so much precision that you’ll know that they’d been at it for years. Merely looking at the guy (who slaughtered the men) was scary because he looked rugged. There were also women among them. One thing I noticed is that by the time they brought those two guys to slaughter, they had almost lost consciousness and offered little or no resistance. They just laid them down like goats and slaughtered them. It was as if they were hypnotised once they took them into that house. Their headless bodies however struggled, just like every normal living being would after going through such fate.

I believe it was because they didn’t take me into that house that I survived. If they had taken me into that house, it probably would have been the end for me. That house was like a gateway to death.

That House

The house people were being taken into before they were slaughtered was a small one-storey building in the middle of the forest. It was the only house visible in the thick forest and I actually wondered if the house was deliberately built for that purpose. It was unpainted, but plastered. I cannot describe the inside, thankfully, because I didn’t make it there.

Advised not to report to the police

Ironically, Adewale has not mentioned a word of the incident to the police, nearly three weeks after. Part of his reason, he said is his lack of trust for the Nigeria Police and the fact that the bus that picked him up loaded very close to the Police Station at Alakuko.

“Since I came back, I have not reported to the police because I know the Nigeria Police. The Alakuko bus stop, where the criminals were picking people is not far from Alakuko Police Station, yet they could not do anything.”

When reminded that the police couldn’t have known the intention of the bus operators and people in the bus, he still cited several other cases that have overtime eroded the people’s trust in the police.

He also cited his pastor’s advice to him to let go of the matter, since God had saved him. Even his mother, he said, warned him. “My mother vehemently warned me not to tell the story to anyone, be it the police or journalists. In fact, I am disobeying both my mother and my pastor by telling this story to you and I’ll like it to be on record that I specifically demanded that you protect my identity as much as possible, because those guys that I encountered are capable of anything. When I told my mother that a journalist was coming to take my story, she told me specifically that I’m doing it at my own risk. The only reason I agreed to give this interview therefore, is to warn people. People should be a bit more careful as they board buses, be it the yellow buses, be it private cars; especially on this Abule-Egba, Alakuko, SangoOta axis. Only God knows how many people would have fallen into their trap since that fateful day.

In truth, it is hard to identify most of these vehicles; but I think people should work with their instincts. If you have a hunch not to get on a bus, don’t. If you suspect right after you’ve boarded and are still in an area where you could salvage yourself, by all means, do so. If need be, scream, if the driver refuses to stop the vehicle.

The morning after

When I got home the following day, my wife initially attacked me, asking when I started going out like that, but when I told her my story, she was just rolling on the floor and thanking God for my life. My mum was also traumatised. She lives in Ikorodu, but the funny thing is that she had always begged me to move away from the Sango-Ota axis, because she once lost her sister to ritual killers around the vicinity. She was missing for days and when they eventually found her corpse; her breasts had been cut off. So she has never been comfortable with any of her relation living in this axis. So now, she has renewed her clamour on us to move over to Ikorodu. Because of this matter, she has also labelled me a stubborn child, because I told her  not to worry.

His takeaway

People are saying the country is bad, things are hard, but we are the harbinger of our problems. Our level of sinfulness is beyond imagination. After what I saw that day, I just came to the conclusion that no sin could be greater than what those people were doing. All because of money.

The police, not aware  -PPRO, Oyeyemi

When the Public Relations officer, Ogun State Police Command, Mr. Abimbola Oyeyemi was contacted on phone, he said he was not aware of any activity of kidnappers or ritualists in the said area and wondered if the victim actually made a report to the police.

He also wondered if the story is not one of those made up stories, insisting that the normal thing for anybody who manages to escape from such gory experience, is to go to the police and make a report.

Oyeyemi said this is mainly for the police to be aware, so that they could begin investigation into the matter and get to the roots of it. He said this is also pertinent, as the police would tighten security in such area and enlighten the public, so they don’t fall prey.

He insisted that the police cannot know of such activity, if a report is not made. He said if the person is sure, he should make a report.