Waterloo for alleged Calabar ritualist
FRIDAY, 04 NOVEMBER 2011 00:00 FROM ANIETIE AKPAN, CALABAR NEWS - METRO
User Rating: / 1
PoorBest


A brother’s tears attracts sympathisers who save banana hawker from a suspected ritual killer

DUSK was setting in and the boy and his 10-year-old sister who hawked bananas around Ibok Street near Marian Market in Calabar, Cross River State, were on their way home.

They had hoped to sell all the bananas in their trays but that had not happened.

Tomorrow, they would continue, they told themselves and that was when man stepped out of the high-walled compound and invited his sister to come in and sell him some bananas.

The boy had stayed outside the gate and waited but his sister did not come out.

Confused and frightened, he did not know whether to knock at the gate and go in search of her or just continue to wait.

Of course, he could not go home without her: what would he tell his parents?

He decided to wait a little more.

Yet, she did not come out and overwhelmed by emotions, he began to cry.

It was those tears that started a chain of events, which saved his sister and led to the nabbing of an alleged ritualist on Tuesday, November 1.

The man, Kenneth Uba, a rice dealer at the Marian Market allegedly lured the banana hawker into his building site at 2, Obot Close, State Housing Calabar probably for ritual purposes.

However, luck ran out on him and he is now cooling his heels at a Zone 6 Police cell following his arrest.

An eyewitness said: “Uba, who along with others, were working on his storey-building, invited the girl into the premises on the pretext that he wanted to buy banana.

“When the girl entered the premises he quickly locked the gate and grabbed the girl and bundled her into a disused fridge.

“ When the girl did not come out of the premises after a long period, the little boy with whom she was hawking bananas began to cry.

“When a passer-by asked him why he was crying, the boy told the man that his sister with whom they were hawking went inside the building to sell bananas and had since not come out”.

The eyewitness said she and others knocked on the gate several times but Uba refused to open.

“That was when we forced the gate open”, she told The Guardian.

“When the gate was forced open, Uba was standing beside the fridge barking like a dog while the girl’s banana tray was lying a few metres away.

“Asked about the girl, he replied he did not know.

“Asked what was inside the fridge, he said it was his dog and when they asked him to open the fridge, he threatened that if the dog escaped, he would hold them responsible and they agreed.

”When the fridge was eventually opened, they saw the girl inside”.

The crowd brought out the girl, held the man and called the police.

After he was taken away, the mob set ablaze the bus that was parked inside the building and the Toyota Corolla parked outside.

Another eyewitness said following the boy’s complaint, passersby alerted the police who came to the building demanding that the gate be opened.

The eye witness further said: “I was standing here and the other boy now pushed the gate open and the policemen called us and we went inside the compound and saw Kenneth standing on top of an unused refrigerator”.

“He told us there were dogs in the refrigerator but the policemen instructed him to open it so they could see what was inside.

“He refused, saying we would pay if his dogs escaped.

“At this, the policemen wanted to leave but I insisted that the refrigerator be opened for us to see what was inside,

“One of the policeman cocked his gun and the other man took the key and opened the refrigerator and we saw a little girl inside it.”

Their fears confirmed the mob fell on Uba and beat him to an inch of his life before the police saved him.

The mob also set ablaze a bus, a Toyota Corolla while the windshield of his Sport Utility Vehicle was smashed.

Items found at Uba’s building site included children’s shoes and clothes suspected to have belonged to children he might have allegedly killed.

The Station Officer at State Housing Police Station, said he was not aware of the incident while the Acting Police Public Relations Officer for the Cross River State Police Command, ASP Hogan Bassey said men from the Zone Six Police Command arrested the suspected ritualist.

Next >
Author of this article: From Anietie Akpan, Calabar
Show Other Articles Of This Author

http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=66408:waterloo-for-alleged-calabar-ritualist-&catid=3:metro&Itemid=558