Last week, I published an article in this column entitled “Where Are God’s People In This Land?” in reaction to alarming reports of daily slaughter of hapless Nigerians at the ever increasing ritual enclaves across the country.
Almost daily now, we hear from lucky survivors grisly stories of how some men with beastly minds, who have since parted ways with their humanity, would just capture their fellow human beings, take them to some secret houses in the bush, butcher them like fowls or goats, and then display their body parts dripping with fresh blood on tables and counters for sale!
The most saddening aspect of the whole gory and hideous business is, like I said last week, the widespread belief, based on the testimonies of survivors, that the most enthusiastic and wealthy buyers of these human body parts are drawn from the cream of the nation’s business and political elite, who use the flesh and blood of their cruelly slaughtered fellow Nigerians for money-spinning and (political) power-generating rituals.
President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria
Now, if it is indeed true that the wealthy patrons of these butchers are the same people whose duty it is to order the security agents to go after them, would it not be naïve to expect them to wage any war against the very source of the very essential ingredients they use for the rituals that guarantee them uninterrupted flow of wealth and extraordinary powers for political ascendancy?
Following that article, a man gave me a shocking report of what happened in Coker in the Orile area of Lagos last week.
It was a bright beautiful morning, and a school bus fully loaded with excited little, tender pupils it had collected from their various homes was heading to school. Suddenly, as the driver slowed down somewhere, may be, due to the countless deep potholes that adorn our streets or for whatever reason, a man rushed at the bus, and with the speed of lightening, opened the door to the driver’s seat, pulled him out violently, jumped in, and zoomed off with the vehicle.
From Coker, he made to connect the Orile-Mile2 expressway through Alafia. But fortunately, near the junction, by Wema Bank, there was a small hold-up, and the children started shouting and calling for help. That area usually witnesses heavy human traffic.
Sensing that he might be apprehended by the people who had been attracted by the screaming of the now frightened children, the man jumped out of the vehicle and ran away.
That was what I heard from the man who also resides in that area last week. And until it is clearly established through eyewitness accounts that the driver of the “snatched” School Bus did not raise sufficient alarm to attract people when the incident occurred (given that the area enjoys heavy human traffic), it would not be advisable to start making any hints at some likelihood of collaboration.
But even though the kidnap attempt was successfully aborted, there would still be need for the driver to be thoroughly examined by experienced security agents, at least to reassure parents, who may still be too shocked to even contemplate what would have happened to the very children they had bathed, fed and dressed up for school that morning. All said and done, the Orile/Coker incident of last week should compel proprietors and administrators of nursery and primary schools especially to ensure that at least two other people accompany drivers as they embark on school run.
Only two weeks ago, Saturday SUN carried this heart-rending story of a woman who had boarded a bus with her three tender daughters. Then the driver changed course and after a long journey took them to a secret house tucked away in a thick bush. There she was forced to take some concussions, after which she fell into very deep sleep. By the time she was woken up, two days later, famished and drained, two out of her three children were gone. Earlier, she had seen some other women and some children, just moping like morons, after some spells had been cast on them. I suspect that, for some reasons, the oracle at the ritual enclave had rejected her and her child, and that was why the men woke her up and sent her away. Now, the latest is that the distraught woman has left home, after leaving a suicide note in which she said she would also kill herself if she did not see her two kids. Since then, no one has seen her.
Commercial buses are fast distinguishing themselves as the most effective means of ferrying unsuspecting men, women and tender children to these slaughter houses. According to the testimonies of survivors, once people board these buses, along the way somebody who had all the while pretended to be a co-passenger would get up, spray some powdery substance over them, and they would all go into a very deep sleep.
By the time they wake up, they would find themselves in a compound surrounded by bushes, manned by beastly guards. And once they take the concussions they usually force on them, they would lose the will to resist, and would follow their killers to the slaughter slab.
Now, it is not only those who patronize commercial buses that are risk. People whose cars break down at lonely spots on the expressway or even at street corners, especially in the evenings, are juicy preys waiting to be snapped up. Even the commercial motorcyclists are not left out in this hideous trade of ferrying unsuspecting people to their most cruel deaths.
A survivor recently testified that throughout the few days they were at the ritual enclave, commercial buses kept arriving in droves, discharging passengers and taking off again in search of new victims. We are regularly confronted with news of missing people nowadays. And many of the people declared missing may never come home. They probably have since been slaughtered and chopped up as items of lucrative trade.
There is also the report that in some of these slaughter houses, some energetic young men and young women whom they had captured are hypnotized and kept together in some rooms, where their business all day is to engage in ceaseless immorality. And while this goes on, their captors would equally be busy carefully collecting the things they are discharging during the act, which we hear are also in high demand for ritual purposes. They are able to keep the young men and women on this act all day-long with the enhancement concussions they usually give them.
Crowd of Nigerians at an event
I wonder what would happen if a pregnancy occurs. That probably would be a bonus, because, they would then have both a neck to cut and hapless foetus to remove from the womb and pound to smithereens! Yes, a survivor had testified recently that once victims drink the concussion they are usually given and sleep off, the children among them are collected from their mothers and cruelly pounded to the death in large mortars, crushed and reduced to something like fufu and used for rituals.
What a heartless, cruel gang of beasts! What a barbaric people! Like I said last week: There is no way any nation where this kind of prehistoric savagery flourishes can ever survive and prosper, because, like in the case of Biblical Abel, the blood of these cruelly butchered men, women and tender children cry unto God daily, seeking vengeance.
I want to mention here that despite the proliferation of fakes and charlatans, there are still people in this land who have the ears of God, whose prayers are able to reach Heaven, because in their thoughts and conducts they honour God without reservations. They may not be known and revered by men, but God and His angels know them. They also know themselves.
We know that this human parts business operates under some demonic shield and powers. That is why they are able to turn people into morons and slaughter them without any of them attempting to make any form of resistance. But we also know that with fervent prayers offered from a regenerated heart that has repented of, and confessed to God any known sin, the dark powers that shield and empower these butchers can be neutralized. Examples abound where the mention of the name of JESUS by genuine believers had put the place in disarray and saved the heads of victims from being cut. Why then should the people of God keep quiet at this critical time when they ought to be raising their voices in prayers and exercising spiritual authority to break the dark shield under which this barbaric trade flourishes and run the sons of Belial behind it out of town?
Are we waiting for the government on this matter? Well, we may wait for eternity. Since reports about these cruel murders of innocent people began to appear in the mainstream media, can anyone recall exactly what the Presidency has said about it? Or like I asked last week, how many State Governors have set up special task forces to comb every bush in their domains to fish out these killing joints? Has the National Assembly or any State Assembly even deliberated on it? Would it ever qualify for a matter of urgent national attention? Has the police high command even deemed it fit to raise a special squad to combat the ugly menace?
As you read this now, some people with flesh and blood like you and I are being slaughtered, cut in pieces and displayed for sale. And no one cares. Flashy cars are trouping in to carte away their chopped up bodies. And no one bats an eyelid. At these killing joints, young men are not even afraid to undress and desecrate men and women old enough to be their parents and slaughter them like fowls.
And no one yells: Hey stop it! Make no mistake about it: this unparalleled barbarism can only continue, unless something decisive is done. And now!
-------------------------------------
First published in 2008 on the back page of Daily Independent (Lagos) in Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye's (now rested) weekly column, SCRUPLES.
