by S’ola Filani

Muyideen Salaam, a 35 year-old apprentice at Aketegbo community in Seme, Badagry area of Lagos, has been arrested for killing a 13 year-old boy, Rilwan Amuda.

In his statement, the suspect gave a chilling confession of how he not only killed the teenager but drained his blood for money ritual, after his wife left with their two children for being poor.

In his confession to Vanguard, he disclosed how one of his friends introduced him into rituals: “I was alone in the video shop club owned by my master when one of my friends named Nuru came and said he knew someone who could make us rich. He told me all that was needed was just the blood of a boy of about 15 years of age.  In my desperation, I told him we would take Rilwan, Mama Elewa’s son since I had easy access to him because he usually ran errands for me and sometimes I gave him money and used clothes.

“We felt it was useless to go out and get someone else since Rilwan stayed in the same area with us. I made him understand that getting someone was not the problem but taking him to the herbalist’s shrine where he would be killed.”

On meeting with the herbalist, he was given a ring and instructed to touch his victim with it.

“On that fateful day, I called Rilwan and touched him with the ring . To my surprise, he became dumb and followed us to the shrine. We kept him there until it was dark. When it was midnight and there was no one in sight, we took him away from the shrine and laid him on the ground. While Nuru slashed his throat with a knife given to us by the herbalist, I held a bowl close to his neck for the blood to pour into it. Rilwan did not put up any resistance as promised by baba because he was hypnotized. And his memory was gone. After we collected the blood, we gave the bowl to baba and carried Rilawan’s body far away from the shrine to avoid suspicion and dumped it on the expressway so as to give an impression that he was hit by a vehicle. We thereafter, went to bath with the blood as instructed by baba. He performed some rituals for us and mixed the blood with a black native soap and gave us to bath with after which he said we would become rich.”

However, after bathing with the substance, he was still poor, no money came in and as fate would have it, the victim’s mother began threatening him to produce her son.

“Rilwan’s mother asked me to produce his son for him. She said she was informed that he was last seen with me. She vehemently refused to let go of my trouser even when I denied. This caused a scene and people gathered around me and started beating me. Nuru who was with me managed to escape. Policemen from Seme division came and took me away. It was at that moment I opened up. But Nuru who lured me into it is nowhere to be found. I am left to bear the brunt alone. If I had known, I would have continued working for my master where I was paid N1,500 every month. The most painful aspect is that I do not have a mother, father, sister or brother. I am just all alone in the world. I do not want to die even though I partook in killing somebody.”

After his arrest, policemen reportedly took him to the herbalist shrine where the suspect showed them the bowl that was used to drain Rilwan’s blood. The herbalist identified as Soji Akodiya did not deny demanding for a human blood from Muyideen and his fleeing friend but he stated that the killing never took place in his shrine.

Explaining why the ritual did not work, he said, “It did not work because they did not follow my instruction. The instruction was to bathe with the prepared concoction nine days after its preparation but they used it on the third day. Had they followed the instruction, they would have noticed a total turn around in whatever they set their hands to do. Their businesses would have been lucrative. And if they leave N1,000 in the bag, they would wake up to meet triple of what was there”.

What a wicked world we live in.