Garba Ahmed, the District Head of Apamsede community, Kogi State, where an 11-year-old boy was reportedly buried alive by her stepbrother, says the family will be compelled to offer sacrifice to cleanse the land, after which they will all be banned from the community.
The district head said this will happen after the law might have run its course on their alleged crime.
This is even as the Police disclosed that Mr. Oshodi, said to be the father of the 11-year-old boy, has not been seen in the home since the incident became public knowledge.
It was also reported that the shovel and the cutlass the stepbrother used to allegedly perpetrate the dastardly act were missing from their home.
The Police claimed that when they visited the family home of the Oshodis on Saturday, all their “valuable items” had been removed.
Passers-by rescued the 11-year-old last Wednesday after he had allegedly been buried by his stepbrother in a bush at the Silo community in Zango Daji, the Adavi Local Government Area of Kogi State.
The 11-year-old boy was alleged to have stolen some money belonging to his stepmother who thereafter reportedly instructed her son to punish him.
In meting punishment to the 11-year-old, the 17-year-old reportedly took his stepbrother into the bush where he allegedly buried him alive.
The Police Public Relations Officer, Kogi Command, SP Williams Ovye-Aya, said that Oshodi had travelled and that the police were waiting for him to return to tell his own side of the story.
At the Apamsede community on Saturday, it was revealed that the father of the victim had absconded, though, when the incident happened, he was at home.
The district head of Apamsede, Garba Ahmed informed that on the day of the incident, the father of the 11-year-old boy, the stepmother and the stepson were summoned to the palace of the traditional ruler on what led to such act.
“When they came to the chief’s palace, Mr. Oshodi, the father of the 11-year-old boy, was present at the palace when both the stepson and stepmother gave reasons for their action,” the district head Ahmed explained.
“The boy’s father probably ran away when we insisted on inviting the police to handle the matter,” Ahmed said; adding, “The stepmother and her son, Goodness, had confessed to committing the dastardly act. But the traditional council of our community has decided not to harbour such people in our land.”
Continuing, Ahmed informed that “Once the stepmother and her son finish facing the wrath of the law, we shall banish them from this land. But before we banish them, we will ensure that the family offer a sacrifice to cleanse the land.”
The police team who brought the boy’s stepmother to their house in Apamsede on Saturday morning discovered that the shovel and cutlass allegedly used in burying the teenager were missing.
Although the house was under lock and key, the police team observed that there were some changes in the environment, unlike what they saw on Friday during their visit.
“Somebody must have entered this your house. Yesterday, when we came here the house was locked and the window curtain inside wasn’t down as we can see now.
“Some of the things that we met outside here yesterday are no more here. Somebody must have come around here,” the Police noted.
The police who had to break the lock and key to gain entrance into the house when the woman claimed that she had no key to the house, alleged that most of the things inside the house had been taken away.
“Where’s the shovel and cutlass you said were in the house? This is because nothing is here. Somebody must have packed the valuables here,” one of the officers said.
