Strange occurrences are no longer in short supply in our country. In a recent horrific incident, 28 persons were rescued by the police from the premises of a church owned by a self-acclaimed “prophet” in Lagos State. One of the captives was Emmanuel Adeyemi’s 17-year-old son, Toba. The victims were living in dehumanising conditions. It is odd that Adeyemi’s congregation and his neighbours kept silent over the gross abuse of human rights that occurred under their noses in the name of religion.
Claiming that his victims were mentally deranged and that he had miraculous powers to heal them, Adeyemi fettered them, subjecting them to torment, hunger and other forms of deprivation. Even if the victims were mentally unstable, such unorthodox method of healing them is unacceptable. Some of them were rushed to hospitals when they were liberated as their health had deteriorated considerably.
But the most horrible was the discovery of 13 children in that kind of terrible condition. This is child abuse. Efforts should be made to heal the mental and physical scars inflicted on them at the illegal healing home. The Lagos State authorities should rehabilitate these innocent souls, some of whom were probably abandoned by their careless parents. Attempts should be made to locate their parents and guardians.
It is a moot point, but many communes that ape Adeyemi’s absurdity are strewn across the country. Government agencies and departments should discreetly investigate queer happenings in the country. The media is replete with reports of “baby factories,” where young girls are made to have babies that are sold off on the cheap by unscrupulous racketeers. In March 2014, the police discovered a derelict property in the Soka forest, Ibadan, Oyo State, where ritual killers had chained down their victims. The security agents found skeletons and 20 decomposing bodies and rescued 18 people alive.
A related incident occurred in Ona Ara Local Government Area, also in Oyo State, in June 2015, where the police found an underground shrine after the arrest of one suspect, Ismail Adesina. In 2013, three women were subjected to torture in Ejigbo Market in Lagos where some vigilantes stuffed their private parts with pepper for allegedly stealing pepper. In the South-South region, children are routinely labelled witches, an entrenched route to consign them to a life of deprivation.
A further indication that the evil practice is rampant occurred in July when officials of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps rescued Taiwo Korede, a nine-year-old boy, in Ado Odo-Ota Local Government Area of Ogun State. He had been chained down for weeks in a church premises. Looking emaciated, his physical appearance belied his age because of the tortuous ordeal that he had suffered. The law enforcement agencies should beam the searchlight on religious organisations involved in these sadistic practices. All those connected should be prosecuted, as these cases border on the infringement of fundamental human rights guaranteed by the 1999 Constitution.
As Adeyemi’s treatment of his son indicated, this brutality has a wide scope. It could be a self-proclaimed cleric, who has no licence to run a medical facility, deceiving those having health challenges, but it could also be a relative presiding over the evil. Last week, the police arrested Mary Matthew, 28, in Imafon, on the outskirts of Akure, the Ondo State capital. Along with her husband, she locked their four-year-old victim in a cage outside their compound for five whole months. Matthew, who is the foster mother of the poor girl, confessed that they decided to cage her because the girl’s mother, who was her sibling, had died of AIDS last year. “When we got to the village, we saw the girl with a swollen body,” Olayemi Ojumu, the police officer that led the rescue team said. “She was holding a loaf of bread. She had defecated on her body inside the cage where she was kept in the bush. They did not allow her to come out to live with them. They gave her food and water inside the cage.” Ojumu had to donate blood for the girl’s treatment. This is sheer cruelty.
The government should deal decisively with these abnormalities to send a message to prospective hostage holders. An Austrian father, Josef Fritzl, was prosecuted in 2009 for imprisoning his daughter, Elizabeth, in a cellar in his house for 24 years after she turned 18. He fathered seven children with Elizabeth, using her as a sex slave in an incestuous relationship. The law took its course and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. In Nigeria, if such deviants are diligently prosecuted, it will serve as a deterrent to others.
In another incident in the United States in May 2013, Ariel Castro was found to have kidnapped three young women – Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus – between 2002 and 2004 in Cleveland, Ohio. He abused them sexually and fathered children with them. Upon prosecution, Castro pleaded to 937 counts of rape, kidnapping and aggravated murder. He was sentenced to 1,000 years in prison. He committed suicide in his cell shortly after his trial.
But Nigerian authorities are notorious for failing to diligently prosecute perpetrators of crime. This has fostered an epidemic of impunity where cruel people like Adeyemi and Matthew abuse the innocent unhindered. Consequently, to rid Nigeria of these barbaric tendencies, the government should come down hard on the perpetrators. This will teach this group of reprobates that inhuman behaviour is not tolerated in a civilised society
