A forty-five-year old man has allegedly cast a spell of madness on a teenager in an effort to have carnal knowledge of the minor for ritual purpose.
The suspect, Idowu Suleimon, who lives at Agbede Transformer, Ogijo in the Ikorodu area of Lagos State, allegedly afflicted the 16-year-old (names withheld) with madness before he raped her.
Our correspondent gathered that Suleimon, an artisan, who is a neighbour to the victim and her mother, Ms. Kehinde Olumuyiwa, allegedly raped the victim, while being chained following suspected insanity she developed after being allegedly afflicted by the suspect.
It was learnt that the teenager, a Junior Secondary School 3 student, was suddenly discovered to be acting in a strange and weird manner. The suspect allegedly raped her five days after her movement was restricted due to her condition.
It was gathered that the suspect, who reportedly confessed to have inflicted the victim with “insanity in order to have carnal knowledge of her for ritual purposes,” had sneaked into the building, where the teenager was chained down and allegedly raped her.
The victim, our correspondent learnt, was temporarily being kept in the building located within the neighbourhood, before she would be taken to a psychiatric hospital for proper care.
Suleimon was, however, caught by men of the vigilance group in the area while he was carrying out the illicit act at
night.
The incident, which occurred around 7:00pm, shocked many residents in the area, who described the suspect as a “wicked and evil man.”
Speaking to our correspondent, a resident, Mr. Aremu Raji, said, “The mother came to call me and other neighbours to come and see what Suleimon had done to her daughter.
“Before then, he (Suleimon) had been beaten seriously by the vigilante men and was held for over an hour, before he was handed over to the police at Ogijo
Division.
“He said he wanted to use the girl for rituals and that was why he afflicted the girl with insanity. He said he was instructed to find a virgin female lunatic to sleep with, a precondition for
the ritual.”
Also speaking, a neighbour, who simply identified himself as Mr. Ajayi, said, “It was like a kind of Yoruba home video. The man (suspect) confessed about what he planned to use the girl for. He said he was the one that inflicted the girl with madness so that he would be able to sleep with her for rituals.”
Explaining her ordeal, the victim’s mother said, “The vigilante men invited me to see what had happened to my daughter because they all knew her before she became mad and I am also well known in the area. They took me to where she was raped by Suleimon. I went and I didn’t know what to do. I felt like killing him, but they held me back.”
The distraught single mother said she had been the only one taking care of her daughter, adding that her father abandoned the family since she was
10 years old.
Meanwhile, the suspect has been detained at Ogijo Police Division, while the victim has been transferred to a psychiatric facility at Igboshoro for
treatment.
When contacted, the Lagos Police Public Relations Officer, Superintendent Chike Oti, confirmed the incident.
