These are perilous times in Nigeria. People embark on journeys nowadays with trepidation. The fear of ritualists, kidnappers and ‘one chance” operators has become the beginning of wisdom.
The rate at which people get missed in Nigeria these days has become alarming. Today, evil-minded commercial bus drivers ferry commuters who innocently board their vehicles to slaughter slabs.
Stories abound of a syndicate that specialises in harvesting people’s vital organs for money-making. Some people are being detained in fiendish centres after they had been reduced to mere animals. Their senses have been taken away, and their lucks diabolically exchanged.
Indications that these centres exist in many parts of the country began to emerge recently. And despite government’s claim of protecting lives and property of citizens, Nigerians have continued to suffer in the hands of some individuals who trade on fellow citizens’ body parts and destiny.
The people of Oyo State was thrown into fear and panic on Monday, November 4, 2019 when the men of the Oyo State Police Command, raided an illegal detention centre located at a mosque in the Ojoo area of Ibadan, and rescued 259 persons held hostage in the centre.
According to the police, the victims, many of whom have been in chains for between two and 10 years, were made up of 191 males, 34 females, 11 children, and 23 sick persons.
Report has it that in this centre, victims were being maltreated, poorly fed, treated like slaves and engaged in forced labour, while the deaths of victims were also not reported.
Shina Olukolu, state commissioner of police, said a 17-year-old escapee from a holding facility in another part of Ibadan, hinted the police on the existence of the Oloore Mosque in Ojoo as a facility used for holding victims against their will.
On arrival, he said, Police discovered that several men and women were being kept in captive in a dungeon-like situation where man’s inhumanity to man was being perpetrated.
BDSUNDAY gathered that many of such illegal detention centres had been in existence in not only the city of Ibadan, but across other cities in Nigeria for several years. In some cases, clerics were accused of using such illegal centres as ‘corrective homes’ for persons believed to have some “spiritual problems”.
This, however, shows the growing rate of man inhumanity to man in Nigeria as people now place less value to human life.
Before the Ibadan incident, on Saturday, October 12, 2019, the Kastina Police Command raided a purported Islamic school in Sabon Garin, Daura Local Government Area of Katsina State, where about 70 men and boys were rescued after they were found in chains.
“In the course of investigation, 67 persons from the ages of 7 to 40 years were found shackled,” said Sansei Bubal, Katsina police spokesman.
According to him, “Victims were also found to have been subjected to various inhuman and degrading treatments by the operators of the centre.”
Earlier on Thursday, September 26, 2019, the Kaduna Police Command, uncovered one Sheikh Ahmad Bin Hambal Islamic School and Rehabilitation Centre in the heart of Rigasa, Igabi Local Government Area, Kaduna State, where 300 children between the ages of five and 10, were handcuffed, chained on the legs, starved of food and held in captivity.
The detained children were forced to fast and sexually abused. It was suspected that the children may be undergoing some form of indoctrination. The victims, according to the police, were mostly from Burkina Faso, Mali and other African countries.
One of the victims, who gave his name as Bello Hamza, said he was supposed to be pursuing a Masters Degree in Applied Mathematics in South Africa, when his family members brought him to the centre around June this year. Hamza, who told newsmen that he was tricked to the centre against his will, also said that he spent those three harrowing months of his life in chains.
“They claim to be teaching us Quran and Islam but they subject the younger ones to homosexuality. It was supposed to be an Islamic centre, but trying to escape from here attracts severe punishment of tying and hanging the person to the ceiling,” he narrated.
According to him, “Within my short stay here, somebody had died as a result of torture. Others have died before my coming due to poor health and torture. They give us very poor food and we only eat twice a day; 11:00am and 10:00pm.”
“We received information that something is going on in this rehabilitation centre or Islamic centre. So, I sent my DPO to check it out. On getting here, we discovered that, this place is neither a rehabilitation centre nor Islamic school. We saw small children, some of whom were brought from neighbouring African countries like Burkina Faso, Mali and others and from across Nigeria, and most of them were even chained,” Ali Janga, police commissioner, said.
Despite the fact that people are being used and dehumanised, he said, the man who operates the home claimed parents brought their children for rehabilitation. “But, from the look of things, this is not a rehabilitation centre and no reasonable parent will bring his child to this place.”
Three weeks later, Governor Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai led security operatives to bust another popular rehabilitation centre called Malam Niga Centre, where he freed 147 inmates.
As people of Kaduna State were yet to come to terms with the discovery of the two homes of horror, the men of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, uncovered a 10-year-old torture chamber called rehabilitation centre in Zaria, also in Kaduna State.
Surprisingly, the three rehabilitation centres were not different in their outlook from the outside as they were all homes of torture and sexual abuse where inmates are chained like animals.
Apart from the dehumanisation practice that takes place in the so-called rehabilitation centres, there are other forms of dehumanisation practices that are presently happening in Nigeria today.
For instance, there have been reports where maids were locked up by their mistresses, fathers or parents chaining their children to a bed on account of suspicion that such children were either witches or thieves.
Violence against children occurs in homes, families, schools, communities and other places where children supposed to feel safe.
According to United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), abuse in all its forms is a daily reality for many Nigerian children and only a fraction ever receive help.
It was estimated by UNICEF that six out of every 10 children experience some form of violence – one in four girls and 10 percent of boys have been victims of sexual violence.
“Of the children who reported violence, fewer than five out of a 100 received any form of support. The drivers of violence against children (VAC) are rooted in social norms, including the use of violent discipline, violence against women and community beliefs about witchcraft, all of which increase children’s vulnerability,” UNICEF says.
Poverty and lack of funds for parents to take care of their children has contributed to sexual and other forms of abuse on Nigerian children.
BDSUNDAY can also recall reports of innocent Nigerians falling victim of “One Chance” and ritual killers taking their victims to solitary buildings located inside thick forests where they are either slaughtered for ritual purposes or held captive for other untoward reasons.
Report has it that ritual killings in Nigeria thrive when people obtain human body parts for use in rituals. Here, ritualists go in search of human parts at the request of herbalists, who use them for sacrifices or for the preparation of various magical potions.
Such ritual practices are reportedly motivated by the belief that such herbalists can bring power and wealth to an individual.
According to researchers from Ambrose Alli University in Ekpoma and the University of Benin, both in Edo State, the traditional targets of ritual kidnapping are “children, lunatics and the physically challenged.”
It was also said that “vulnerable members of the society, such as women, children, the elderly, and people with disabilities, as well as family members of ritualists, are targeted and killed by ritualists.”
In 2010 for instance, the media reported that dead bodies with missing organs were found on a daily basis on the LASU-Igando Road close to Lagos State University in place that was described as a “hot spot for ritual killers.”
In addition, it was also reported in February 2011 that in the same area, 10 persons were killed by suspected ritual murders.
To curb this, there is the need for both the Federal and state governments to work with local authorities to expose “unwanted cultural practices that amount to the abuse of children and vulnerable adults.”
Parents also need to desist from taking their children to illegal, unauthorised or unapproved rehabilitation centres located across the country.
Government must provide infrastructural facilities and employment opportunities in the rural areas in order to prevent drift of the young population to the cities.
Also, there is an urgent need to sustain the supportive role of the extended family system which is rapidly being eroded. In doing this, there is need for more effective legal protection for the handicapped children, and greater awareness of the existence of child abuse in the community by health and social workers.
Nigerian parents must pay serious attention to inculcating high moral and value system among children and youths to limit the manner which today’s generation drift from morality.
This will go a long way in deterring the youth from indulging in illegal businesses out of desperation to acquire wealth and to live above the poverty line.
Aside from the provision of social amenities, the government needs to pay serious attention to job creation to not only reduce the level of unemployment in the society but to also reduce the level of economic pressure on masses.
AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE
