- ‘I saw him in boxer shorts on my aunt’s bed’
Damilola Joseph, niece of a victim of alleged ritual killing, Raliat Sanni, has narrated how a cleric, Pastor Tobiloba Ipinse of the Holy Gathering Evangelical Church of God, in Ewekoro Local Government Area of Ogun State, allegedly had sex with her aunt before delivering her into the hands of her killers.
Ipinse, whose church is located at the Ebute area of Ewekoro had, on March 21, allegedly connived with some other pastors belonging to an occult group, and killed his church member and secret lover, Raliat, a mother of six, for ritual purposes.
But the pastor, who has since been arrested by the police in Ogun along with his accomplice, Daniel Sopeju, denied his involvement in the killing of the 35-year-old hair dresser.
When I went home to take my dinner around 8pm, I saw pastor Ipinse in his boxer shorts, drying himself with a towel and my aunt, who was just coming out of the bathroom, saw me and asked me to leave her room immediately
He told the police that Sopeju beheaded the victim, cut off her two hands and buried the remaining part of her body in a room inside his uncompleted church building in Ebute.
However, 13-year-old Damilola, who is a student of United Comprehensive High School, Wasinmi, told our correspondent that Pastor Ipinse lied in his confession to the police, stressing that the suspect actually led her aunt into the hands of her killers.
According to her, Ipinse had visited the victim’s house on two different occasions before the fateful day he came to lure her to her death.
She claimed that at about 8:00pm on March 21, she returned home to take her dinner, but allegedly met Pastor Ipinse on her aunt’s bed, wearing boxer shorts and drying his body with a towel, while her aunt, too, emerged from the bathroom shortly after. Damilola added that her aunt immediately sent her on an errand.
Damilola, who was brought up by Raliat, following the demise of her own biological mother, further said that at about 3:00am that night, her aunt went out of the room to break a coconut on which some candles were tied and didn’t return until about three hours later and only instructed her 17-year-old son, Shola, to take care of his siblings before disappearing mysteriously.
She said, “When I went home to take my dinner around 8pm, I saw pastor Ipinse in his boxer shorts, drying himself with a towel and my aunt, who was just coming out of the bathroom, saw me and asked me to leave her room immediately.
“But my elder brother, Shola, later told me that mummy went out around 3am to break a coconut bound with some candles and he did not see her until 6:00am, when she came back and told him that he should take care of his siblings. But we suspect it was her ghost that came that morning, because they might have killed her around that 3am, when she went out to break the coconut.”
Corroborating Damilola’s account, the victim’s son, Shola Ibrahim, who is also a student of the United Comprehensive High School, Wasinmi, told our correspondent that his mother left home at about 3:00am that night and later came back around 6:00am in the morning, instructing him to take care of his siblings and immediately vanished.
“The last time I saw my mother was on the 21st of March, when she went out around 3:00am and asked me to lock the doors and when she later came back around 6:00am, she told me to take care of my siblings, that she would soon come back and she disappeared immediately,” he said.
The deceased’s elder brother, Dauda Hassan, who went with the police at Ewokoro to arrest Pastor Ipinse, said, “I went to our mother and she told me that my sister, Raliat went to meet a pastor at Wasinmi for spiritual consultation and the pastor asked my sister where she had planned to go and my sister told the pastor that another pastor wanted to take her on a journey and the pastor told her not to tell anybody.”
The victim’s 75-year-old mother, Madam Olufunmilayo Adebola, and her nonagenarian father, Hassan Adebola, lamented that the death of their daughter, who was the breadwinner of their family, occurred in such a mysterious manner.
They appealed to the government to make sure that their daughter’s killers were brought to justice.
While confessing the crime, Ipinse had claimed that Sopeju, popularly known as Oba Majemu, and one woman, Oluwakemi Ishola, wanted to initiate him into an occult group and asked him to submit the names of his church members out of which Raliat was picked for the rituals.
The pastor, who is a teacher at Methodist High School, Arigbajo, said that after Sopeju killed the victim, her blood was put into seven different calabashes while her severed head and hands were shared among the members of the occult group.
He said, “It was not true that I killed the woman. It was one Mr. Sopeju Daniel and a woman, Oluwakemi Ishola, who wanted me to join their occult group and they said that they were going to collect a ransom.
“They collected the names of my members and picked Raliat Sanni. Having mentioned her name, they asked me where she was living and I told them she was living at Wasinmi. They later got her and brought her to my church.
“Sopeju brought out a knife and beheaded the woman and after beheading her, he collected her blood and put it in the seven calabashes.”
Meanwhile, an irate mob at Ebute demolished Ipinse’s church and burnt down his house, built close to the church. Various fetish objects were allegedly found in the pastor’s house before it
was razed.
