A puerile boy (pictured left) was recused from a house in Ota, Ogun state just as he was about to be killed for ritual. Below is the full story from Punch
Fate smiled on an unidentified puerile boy hawking on Alhaji Jamiu Sulaimon Street in Itele, Ota area of Ogun State on Tuesday evening as he was rescued from kidnappers in the area, just as he was about to be killed.
No 3, Alhaji Jamiu Sulaimon, where the boy was rescued is incontrovertibly one of the most pulchritudinous houses on the street but no one could have imagined the horror discovered behind its high walls.
When a Punch correspondent visited the scene on Wednesday morning, a police patrol conveyance was stationed in front of the compound to ward off curious residents and looters.
Upon gaining access to the house, it did not take long for the correspondent to descry a spatter of blood on the walls of virtually all the toilets in the house. One particular toilet had more cumbersomely hefty smears of blood on its walls and door.
A resident of the street, Abdulateef Isa, told the Punch correspondent that the rescued boy used to hawk belts on the street.
Isa verbally expressed,
“The boy is Igbo, he sells belts and he is kenned by many in this area albeit we don’t genuinely ken his designation. He was hawking with his friend yesterday (Tuesday) afore this whole issue came to light. His friend, who is additionally an Igbo boy, kenned when he was called into the compound but when he waited for more than 30 minutes and his friend had not emerge, he raised the alarm.”
A police officer from the Itele Police Division verbally expressed residents of the area came to the station to report on Tuesday evening that a boy who went into a compound to sell had gone missing.
“Our divisional police officer instantly issued a search warrant and detached a team to the compound. When we got there, an astronomically immense number of residents had amassed and we had to be strategic in controlling them for us to gain access.
“We got there and met an adolescent man who verbally expressed he was the brother of the owner of the house. He commenced opening each of the rooms, acting calm and reiterating that, ‘See for yourself, each room is vacuous.’
“But our DPO insisted that she perceived an odour that was aberrant. She asked one of us to climb through a window and check the corner of a toilet. And there was the boy, covered in blood. He was even too impuissant to shout.
“From the look of things, the kidnappers had already endeavored to kill the boy but hurriedly forsook him and fled because the victim’s friend raised the alarm. The man we apprehended must have been given order to stay behind and divert suspicion.”
The boy was verbalized to have been visually impaired in one ocular perceiver as caked blood covered one of his ocular perceiver sockets. There was a bloody deep gash on his neck additionally, which was suspected to have emanate from an endeavor to slaughter him.
The Punch correspondent learnt that the boy was immediately rushed to the hospital while the man found in the house was apprehended. The agent in charge of the house was withal later apprehended.
Few minutes after the police left the compound, the residents set the house ablaze and every valuable in the house was ravaged.
A four-bedroom bungalow, painted in and out with fancy paint, it was pellucid the house was built by an affluent person.
Residents verbalized the house was consummated about three years ago.
“The engenderer in this house runs all day long,” one resident verbalized. “The men we visually perceive coming in and going out of the house keep to themselves. All we ken is that so many people come into the house. Nobody has gone missing on this street afore, so nobody had any reason to suspect anything,” Mr. Olusegun Adio, who lives a few houses down the street, verbally expressed.
One of the bellwethers of the community, Alhaji Isa Jimoh, who notified the police about the missing boy, verbalized he never had any inkling that kidnappers could be operating a den in the area.
Jimoh, who lives about seven houses away from the horror house, verbally expressed,
“I have no conception who owns that house and I have no conception when it was built. The short time it was built from start to culminate, I was not around then.
“When I got report that a child who was hawking and called inside the compound never emerged, I had to apprise the police because I realised it was not the obligation of residents to storm the place.
“The first time the police came, the place was under lock and key. They went back to their office and when they came back, they broke the gate, apprehended a man inside there and discovered the boy moribund on the floor of one of the toilets.”
Jimoh verbally expressed no one had ever been missing in the area, which was why they probably did not suspect any malefactor activity in the house.
Spokesperson for the Ogun State Police Command, Mr. Muyiwa Adejobi, verbally expressed the suspects apprehended in the case have been transferred to the Department of Malefactor Investigation, Eleweran, Abeokuta.
He verbally expressed,
“Our men from the Itele Division moved in as soon as they got a report about the house suspected to be utilized by kidnappers and prospered in rescuing the boy alive albeit he was in lamentable shape.
“The boy will pull through as he is currently receiving treatment in a hospital. In the meantime, the Comissioner of Police, Mr. Ikemefuna Okoye, has authoritatively mandated a comprehensive investigation into the case. Efforts are being made to apprehend other accomplices who fled the house. This is just an evidence of our tenaciousness to stamp out criminality in this state.”
