RITUAL KILLINGS!

You are looking at what used to be a living human-being. A young woman cut down in her prime by marauding beasts aka ritual killers! Her name was Edith Onuh-Ossai. Her young 26years old life was cut short by men believed to be ritual killers. Edith was a native of Inyi in Igbo-Eze North East Development Council of Nsukka general area of Enugu State Nigeria. According to information reaching Icheoku, Edith left her parents home on February 4th, 2008 to attend a funeral ceremony of her deceased kinsman but never made it back home thereafter. A search party organized by the traditional ruler of Inyi, Igwe Hyacinth Alumona for Edith, discovered her dismembered body, dumped in a shallow grave near their town’s health centre.

Edith according to information available to Icheoku was just one of a many such victims of ritual killings, which is becoming a trend now within the environs of Inyi and the surrounding town of Umu-okoro community. (Inyi and Umu Okoro are two border towns between Enugu and Benue states in Igbo-eze, with headquarter at Ogurute and very close to the popular never center of commerce Ubollo Afor. They both share a common border with Orakam, Benue State). Most recently, about four women have fallen victim to ritual killings in the area including one Mrs Eucharia Abugu, Mrs. Caroline Odo and two others whose family would rather they remain anonymous. According to Igwe Hyacinth Alumona, these four women who were gruesomely murdered in the past three months in the two neighboring towns, had their vital parts removed by their killers which increased the speculation that they were victims of ritual killings. The traditional ruler named four traditional medicine practitioners in the community who are suspected of sponsoring these ritual killings including one Madam Veronica Uja, Mr. Joseph Ogbonna, Mr. Francis Ojobor and Mr. Jeremiah Eze. Continuing, the traditional ruler decried that their people can no longer go to schools, markets or farm because of palpable fear of these ritual killers. That nobody dares to go outside their house from dusk till dawn; in other words there is an unofficial self-preservation induced curfew within their surrounding vicinity. During the day, nobody travels alone but will demand companion in case the ritualists strikes! The matter, he said has been reported to the authorities.

Information reaching our desk at Icheoku reveals that these towns have, over the years, assumed a particular notoriety for being nesting-grounds of native medicine practitioners and its concomitant ritual killings. According to available information, in Inyi community, virtually every male and some handful of women pride themselves as first class native doctors, herbalists and witch-doctors. It is estimated that over twenty persons have been killed for ritual purposes in the areas surrounding these communities within the recent past. It was also gathered that the preference for killing of women suddenly spiked because of very high demand for their unique body parts (particularly their labia-majora) by patrons of native doctors in the area, who use it for "charms that will make them rich overnight or the ones that will facilitate their electoral victories or steel charms that will fortify them against bullet attacks aka "Ode echi"- bullet proof talisman".

Icheoku decries this ugly development as a serious security concern for the people of Inyi, Umu-Okoro, Igbo-eze, Nsukka and Enugu State in general. As a result all security agencies in Enugu State must rise up to the occasion and curb this very primitive primordial practice. It is a stain on the image of the good people of Enugu State. Such activity negatively impacts the economy of the local communities so affected and will also damage the reputation of Enugu State which will now be seen as the haven for ritual killers. Such is not a bankable reputation and hence must be crushed ruthlessly and immediately! If it means summarily execution of the culprits through vigilantism so be it, but this ulcer must not be allowed to fester! It must be stopped at all cost! At worst, let the State government invite the famed Bakassi boys and turn them loose in these communities of Inyi and Umu-Okoro so that they can clean house, Bakassi way, of course! Whatever form it takes, this disgraceful criminality must be stopped anyway and anyhow possible! If it means the end justifying the means, so be it; period!