How ‘ritualists’ gouged out eyes of Borno IDP

Residents of 202 housing estate in Maiduguri, Borno state capital, are yet to recover from shock following the alleged forceful removal of the eyes of a 58-year-old internally displaced person (IDP) who is mentally challenged.

The incident was said to have occurred on Thursday,  less than 24 hours after lifeless body of a 7-year-old girl was found in Mairi ward in the metropolis.

Gulumba Galtimari, a resident of 202, said the IDP was seen calling for help after the culprits reportedly plucked out his eyes with sharp objects.

“We saw the man screaming helplessly with no one to come to his aid. We tried our best to know his name or where he came from to enable us reach out to his families but to no avail,” Galtimari said.

Yahya Muhammad, another witness, said all effort to get him to the hospital, proved abortive.

Muhammad explained that “good Samaritans” helped the victim with food and pain reliever before they were able to locate his family.

“We took him to the state specialist hospital and the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital, but we were told that the hospitals were on strike so they cannot attend to him. We also put an extra effort and took him to the State Phychiatric hospital, but we learnt that the facility had not been operational since four years ago due to the Boko Haram insurgency. We later took him to the Eye Hospital but they said they don’t have bed space to admit him.

“Eventually, we took him back to where we picked him from and dropped him there. All we could do to him at that moment was to give him food and some pain reliever just to reduce the pain and stablise him.

“Two days after, we were able to locate his family members in Konduga. After we told them what happened, they said there was nothing they could do because they are financially incapacitated to take care of him.”

Reacting to the incident, Damian Chukwu, the state commissioner of police, said detectives were probing the case, and another incident involving the murder of a lady in her hotel room.

Chukwu said the lady was found dead with her throat cut off in a hotel room in Maiduguri.

He, however, said the cases are isolated.

“These cases don’t usually happen, this incident is an isolated incident. Investigation is on-going to unravell the perpetrators,” Chukwu said.

However, Ibrahim Wada, a resident of Tasham Bama, denied Chukwu’s claim, adding that more than 12 such cases had been recorded in the area in 2018.

Wada said that the high incident of serial ritual killing in the area required urgent intervention from the police.

“We the citizens are rapidly losing faith in the ability of the police to detect and punish ritual killer,” Wada said.