A 50-year-old Beninese farmer, Poni Bada has been arrested by police operatives in Ogun State over an alleged attempt to us£ his 9-year-old son for money rituals.
The suspect was arrested alongside three other men identified as Ige Koselu, Benjamin Balovi and Segun Shile.
The trio were said to have accompanied the farmer to a herbalist’s home in the Owode area of the state, where the money ritual was to be carried out.
According to Bada, “I have ten children from three wives. The situation of things kept going from bad to worse. I could not feed my children. I then decided to use my last child, Agbe, for a money ritual, so that I could train the other children and have better living conditions”.
Also speaking, Segun Shile said: “If I had known, I would have withdrawn. We were warned by the herbalist I took them to at Owode, Ogun State, not to use the boy. When l called the herbalist on the phone, he said there was nothing like money rituals. A few days later, he invited me to bring the person that would be used for the rituals.
“Immediately he sighted the boy, he stated categorically that the child’s head was too strong to be used for rituals. He, however, demanded N100,000 to take to another herbalist who would perform the rituals.
“Three of us: Balovi, Koshelu and myself, who accompanied the father of the boy there, then went outside to discuss how to raise the money. Balobi brought N50,000, and Koshelu and l added N25,000 each. We told the boy’s father not to pay since he was donating his son for the ritual.
“The agreement was for him to give us out of what would come out of the process. When we handed the money to the herbalist, he picked up his phone and called someone.
“To our surprise, the next thing we saw were policemen,” he said.
Eighteen-Eleven Media