Police uncover ritual killers’ hideout in Ondo, arrest five

Policemen attached to the Igbotako Division of the Ondo State Police
Command have uncovered a hideout where suspected ritual killers keep their
victims.
PUNCH Metro learnt that the hideout is located in Ago Oyinbo Community in
the Okitipupa Local Government Area of the state.
According to residents, ritual killers had been using the hideout for the past
three years. Police investigations revealed that the suspects, after kidnapping
their victims, would bring them to the location and slaughter them.
Sequel to the discovery of the illegal activities of the suspects, the youths of
the community were said to have reported to the police who reportedly
stormed the village and arrested about five people in connection with the
crime. The youths also reportedly demolished the building.
When our correspondent visited the hideout at the village which is a few
kilometres from Benni-Ore-Ijebu Ode Expressway, the mud building allegedly
used for the act was found demolished while some of the fetish items found
there had been burnt.
Also sighted at the hideout were: cow horns, clothes reportedly belonging to
some of the victims, palm fronds, bottles of gin, calabashes, ‘Ghana must go’
bags among others .
Confirming the development, the Baale of the Ago Oyinbo, Chief Moyebi
Okeowo, explained that the ritual killers started using the building in 2012 when
the suspects came to him to beg for a space in the village which they wanted
to use for a location to shoot a movie.
He said he asked somebody to take them to the owner of the land, unknown
to him that the suspects had an ulterior motive.
He said, “They came to me to beg for a piece of land to shoot their film. I told
them I was not the owner of the land and I took them to the brother of the
landlord of the land who then took them to the wife of the landlord in Akure.
“I learnt they were authorised by the wife of the landlord to use the land and
since then they have been using the land. I told their leader to go and report
their activities to the police and he later informed me that he had done so.”
The old man stated further that he was unaware of the activities of the
suspects until last Monday when he got the information that the suspects
were using human beings for sacrifice on the land.
Also speaking with our correspondent, the Principal of Community Grammar
School in a neighbouring community of Kajola, in the Odigbo Local Government
area of the state, Mr. Joseph Edosama, said two of the security guards of the
school were among the suspects, for conspiring with the suspected
kidnappers.
However the state Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Wole Ogodo, when
contacted on telephone said he had not been briefed on the case.