A news item from Nigeria:
Horror: Police find 50 bodies, 20
skulls in Anambra shrine
Arrest 32 Occult priests From Uzoma Nzeagwu (Awka and Chuks Collins
(Onitsha) AND the police commissioner wept.
He did so quietly, with the dignified restraint of one accustomed to long
years of the strictest discipline. But the tears flowed all the same.
The spectacle which brought the Anambra State Police Commissioner, Mr.
Felix Ogbaudu,to tears was the stuff of which nightmares are made: Human
bodies in various stages of decomposition, many of them with leathery
skins gummed to their bones like mummies, human body parts; about 20 human
skulls, countless human skeletons bleached white!
The stench was hellish; it hit the guts like a thousand punches delivered
at once.
Nearby, the policemen who accompanied their boss retched.
Huddled in a corner of the shrine (Okija shrine) were its custodians, 32
in all. On sighting them, Ogbuadu wondered aloud: "... are these priests
human beings or ghouls"
Ogbaudu, assisted by the commander
of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), Mr. Gabriel Haruna (CSP), had
stormed the "Evil Forest" site of the shrine in Ihiala Local Council of
the State in a convoy of about 26 vehicles around 10.00 a.m. yesterday.
Tagged Liberation Raid, it followed a tip-off earlier in the week followed
by two petitions channeled through the Inspector-General (IG) of Police.
Parading the suspects at the premises of the police command in Awka, a
visibly shaken police commissioner recounted his experience: "I shed tears
at the sight of human corpses, many completely severed of their skulls,
bones of many years, coffins with corpses and ... I never believed that
such a thing could happen in this country."
"Some of the corpses are not decomposed, but shrinking with their skin
gummed to their bodies.
"It will be extremely difficult to give a figure of the corpses, but close
to 50 looked like human beings and many have decomposed."
One of the suspects and a chief priest, Osita Ndukwu from Umuhu Okija who
described himself as a native doctor and occultist, mentioned that several
shrines were in existence, including his own called Ogwugwu-Isiala, while
others were Ogwugwu Akpu, Idigo among others, stressing that Ogwugwu Akpu
is the biggest shrine.
Narrating how they operate in the shrine, Ndukwu said aggrieved parties or
a complainant comes to lodge a complaint, after which the Chief Priest
sends for the accused who may or may not answer the call.
According to him, when disagreeing persons appear at the shrine, they
administer oath on them and as a result, the guilty one dies.
Ogbaudu wondered what the suspects could have been doing with such large
number of dead bodies.
"They were so many and the thick forest in which the shrines were located
was inaccessible as these things appear to have been going on for many
years," Ogbaudu added.
It was difficult, he said, to distinguish between males and females except
where the dresses were still recognizable.
The commissioner also noted that as some of the corpses had their heads
and or other parts missing, the priest could have been trading in human
parts also.
He pointed out a striking observation that the flesh was discovered gummed
to the skeletons even after so much rains.
He also expressed suspicion that the priests got their victims hypnotized,
drugged them and when they eventually died, the families were ordered to
bring the corpses back to the shrine where they were dumped to decompose.
He described the whole set-up as murderous.
"From what we saw there, it's evidence those people there were killed."
Some of the operational registers at the two shrines were also recovered.
The Guardian's investigation revealed that adherents, including rich and
influential people, who come there were poisoned to die and their corpses
and property brought down to the shrines while the priests share the
booty.
One of the occult chief priests, Osita Ndukwu, admitted that his family
resides in Lagos where he owns houses and other businesses.
He stated that he had started "exporting" the deities and its priests to
other states in the federation, and overseas.
A popular deceased businessman, was said to have been taken to the shrine
after all the glamour of his high-society burial, because someone
'reported' him to the Ogwugwu-Akpu.
It was also alleged that prominent politicians in the state had gone from
time to time to swear to an oath at these shrines.`
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