A grieving father, Olumide Lawal, has narrated the harrowing ordeal of how his 16-year-old son, Wahab Lawal, was brutally murdered and mutilated by a suspected ritualist, Salawu Omikansola, in the Igbile Ijebu area of Ogun State.
According to a statement issued by the Ogun State Police Command’s spokesperson, Omolola Odutola, Lawal had reported his son missing on July 21. Just two days later, on July 23, the teenager’s decomposing body was found along the expressway with his head, wrists, heart, and genitals cut off.
Acting on intelligence, police arrested Salawu Omikansola and one Serefusi Agemo in connection with the crime.
Recounting how the tragedy unfolded, Lawal said his mother had initially called to ask if Wahab was with him, as the boy was nowhere to be found. Alarmed, he travelled down from Ijebu-Ode to Igbile to search alongside his mother.
Despite their efforts, the boy could not be located until two days later when some women returning from the farm told him they saw clothes and sandals resembling those of his son.
He said, “On Wednesday, I left home by 4 a.m. because I was uncomfortable, and I continued to search everywhere, but I couldn’t find him. I went home, but at about 2 p.m., when I returned to Igbile, some women came to me and said they saw clothes and sandals that looked like those of my child I was looking for when they were returning from the farm, and they were suspecting that my son had been killed.”
“I was surprised — how could he have been killed? And I said they should take me there. The people were scared, so I took a bike and when I got to the scene, I met my son’s corpse. He had been killed. His head, his two wrists, his heart, and his private parts had been chopped off,” he painfully recalled.
Lawal said after reporting the body to the police, they instructed that it be buried. But determined to uncover the truth, he began probing the area and learned from locals that vigilantes had earlier stopped a man with bloodstains on him the night Wahab disappeared.
He said, “While I was sniffing around for information, I heard from someone that someone was accosted at about 1 a.m. on Monday by vigilantes, and the person had bloodstains on his clothes and body. But when they asked him where he got the stains, he said he had gone to kill a dog for someone celebrating Ogun Ajobo, which made the vigilantes free him.”
Lawal added that he was able to identify the suspect and reported him to the police, who arrested and interrogated him. According to Lawal, the suspect later confessed that he acted on the instruction of a traditionalist named Serefusi.
“Someone pointed the suspect out to me, and I informed the police, who arrested him and took him to their station. I believe that after he was investigated, he began confessing that he was sent by one Serefusi to kill the boy.”
“He gave the police the details of how they killed the boy and dismembered his body, which prompted them to arrest Serefusi. He said he was scared when he was asked to kill the boy, but Serefusi told him not to be afraid. Serefusi is the head of the Agemo worshippers in the community.”
Lawal pleaded with the government and relevant authorities not to let the murder go unpunished.
“My appeal to the government is that they should not let the death of my son be in vain. I want justice for him because I am beginning to hear that Serefusi is influential and has backup that may help him evade justice,” he said.
At press time, both suspects remained in police custody, and efforts to reach them for comments proved unsuccessful.
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