Report - How Ritualists, Kidnappers Hunt For Passengers On Ogun-Lagos Road
Category: Crime News
As government and security operatives make efforts to stop insecurity in Ogun State and Nigeria in general, ritualists, kidnappers, robbers and r3pists have now devised a new method to hunt down unsuspecting passengers and make them victims.
Findings by Daily Post show that they now operate under the guise of commercial cab drivers and cyclists.
In most cases, these fake commercial drivers are among those the Yorubas popularly described as Sọọlẹ̀. They pick passengers by the roadside without any traceable motor park and drive them to their destinations.
READ: Declare State of Emergency on Ritual Killings - Reps To FG
The sọọlẹ̀ system is rampant on major roads across the nation.
Some of these drivers engage in the practice to avoid being on the
queue for several hours waiting for passengers at the approved motor parks.
Most passengers also do not like spending precious time awaiting other
passengers before embarking on their journeys.
To entice roadside
passengers, the sọọlẹ̀ drivers beat down their transport fares as they do not
pay charges imposed on their colleagues by transport union officials at
motorparks. Some of them, it was gathered, make more money than their
colleagues at the parks. Commuters with low budgets, those who are in a hurry
and those whose houses are far away from the approved parks find pleasure in
roadside drivers.
READ: Man Killed Teenager, Drained His Blood For Money Ritual
“I board cabs by the road. I prefer it to going to parks where I will
pay more and even waste my time. I think there is nothing bad about it,” a
civil servant, Mordiya Adeyemi told Daily Post in Sango.
Today,
findings revealed that some individuals have taken advantage of this to kill,
r3pe or rob their victims.
Ritualists, kidnappers, robbers and even
r3pists now appear as commercial drivers, tricycle and okada riders to pick
waiting passengers, who later become their victims.
DP reliably gathered that the devilish act has become so worrisome, especially
on the Abeokuta/Sagamu/Ogere, Ijebu-Ode/Ibadan/Lagos roads and others.
“The ritualists are out there to kill those innocent passengers
for money-making rituals. The kidnappers will hold the passengers hostage for
ransom, while the R3pists only target women to forcefully have carnal
knowledge of them and may even kill them.
“These criminals have
their hideouts inside the forests along these roads. Most of them even operate
with charms. The moment you enter their cars, you sleep off or lose
consciousness.
READ: See Human Parts Dealer Who Has Bought 15 Cars, Built 4 Houses From The Business (Pictured)
Some threaten their victims with guns. We are in a very difficult time.
Everybody must open their eyes,” a driver on the Abeokuta-Iperu road told our
correspondent anonymously.
The driver, in his 60s, recalled how a
ritualist was once arrested by the transport union task force, saying “he
confessed he used to sell a human head at the rate of N50,000.”
Daily
Post recalls that the Ogun State police command recently raised the alarm over
the availability of a yet-to-be-identified serial killer said to be on the
prowl in the Remo axis of the State.
READ: President Buhari Calls For Strictest Punishments For Ritual Killers, Police Attackers
Police Public Relations Officer in Ogun, Abimbola Oyeyemi, said the
serial killer used to pretend as an okada rider and pick his targeted female
victims as passengers.
Such victims, according to Oyeyemi, would
be “taken to an isolated area, raped and brutally murdered in cold blood.”
This was said at a time the security agents were searching for the
killers of the late Beauty Queen of Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta. It
is not clear whether or not the serial killers in Remo have been arrested
since August.
READ: Pictured: Man Who Killed, Beheaded Pastor, Use His Liver and Intestines to Prepare Pepper Soup
The police, in the same month, arrested a bike rider and one other, who picked
a female passenger and forcefully conveyed her to a building where she was
gang-raped by three young men in Ogijo, Sagamu Local Government Area of Ogun
State.
In Sango-Ota, a 21-year-old okada rider, Idowu Adebayo, was
arrested by the So-Safe Corps for allegedly abducting and attempting to rape
and kill a female passenger inside a bush in Ayegbe village.
At gunpoint, a tricycle operator had raped a female passenger and
dispossessed her of the money on her around 4am on June 22. The 22-year-old Rasaq Tahoeed, had picked the passenger at the popular
Pakoto bus stop going to Iyana Coker in Ifo, but the rider diverted to another
route, threatening to kill her if she failed to cooperate, police said.
READ: 20-Year Old Polytechnic Student Killed For rituals in Ikorodu
Also, a taxi driver identified as Tunde Bello was arrested few months ago for
allegedly kidnapping, raping and collecting N140,000 ransom from a female
passenger along the Mowe axis of the road. The victim, who boarded Bello’s cab
around 5 o’clock in the morning was beaten and molested when the driver made a
detour to Ibadan road and drove her into a bush along the Lagos-Ibadan
expressway.
“After r3ping her, he held her hostage and asked her
to call her relations, who sent the sum of N140,000 to him as ransom before he
let her go,” the police stated, adding that the suspect admitted the crime.
Recently, the police arrested two ritualists who kidnapped one Abdullahi
Azeez, killed him and used his body parts for a money ritual. The 40-year-old victim was said to have left his home in Kobape on June 8,
but he never returned. It was not clear how he was kidnapped by the suspects,
Friday Abinya Odeh (21) and Poso Idowu (20); but there are speculations that
he must have been dragged away while on transit.
READ: 200 Level Student Kill 8-Year Old Niece For Money Ritual
Daily Post correspondent gathered that there are many unreported cases
of persons who got missing or attacked after boarding cars or buses by the
roadside.
“We have seen people who will come to our parks to say a
member of their family is missing. Some people came to Kuto motorpark some
time ago to say their relative was missing. We asked them where he boarded a
cab and they said it was by the bridge. We told them that was sọọlẹ̀. Those
vehicles are not registered, not traceable, the driver is unknown,” a Road
Transport Employers Association leader said.
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