Anastasia Okechukwu Reporting
Two persons from Koshisha Local Government Area in Venue State has been arrested by Police for buryng an elderly man alive over allegation of witchcraft.
The victim, identified as Ihwakaa was accused of being behind the thunder that struck his son, Henry Ihwakaa, wife and two weeks child about five days ago.
It was gathered that on that fateful day, the youths mobilized and attacked Mr Ihwakaa and one other person they alleged was his collaborator and later dug a shallow grave and buried them alive.
A witness and elder in the community, Engr Baba Agan, said the matter was reported to the police in Konshisha local government where the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) mobilized his men to the scene of the incident but by the time the police officers got there to exhume their body, the two elders had already died.
The Police Public Relations Officer, (PPRO), SP Catherine Anene, while speaking to newsmen in Makurdi on Monday, confirmed the incident saying two suspects have been arrested and further investigation is ongoing.
Anene said “I heard it was one person that was buried alive. They said the deceased is a young man who had a wife and a child. Lightning killed three of them; the man, his wife and a two weeks old child. Maybe they were in the same room when the lightning came.
“So the youths now said it was the elders that were bewitching people, that his father bewitched him with the lightning. So they carried him and buried him alive as a witch.”
The PPRO who noted that the police has arrested two persons in connection with the case, said the youth put up a serious fight with the police to prevent their arrest.
Anene added that most people don’t listen to the news, while some others are still uneducated and don’t comprehend science or how things function. She recalled that authorities had stated during a weather forecast that there would be many thunderstorms this rainy season.
The PPRO, who called the act barbaric, warned the populace against jungle justice and advised them to always submit any crime to the police for the best course of action and not take matters into their own hands, stating “We cannot continue to be living like animals, a barbaric way of life.”