…Police Arrest Five Suspects
By Wole Adedeji, Ilorin
Five suspected ritualists, who allegedly killed and severed the head of a sex worker for money rituals in Patigi, Kwara State, have been arrested by the Police.
While the remaining parts of Abgail, the deceased sex worker, were recovered on the arrest of the ritualists, her head was still not found at the time of filing this report, according to the police.
The Kwara State Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, Ajayi Okasanmi, SP, had told journalists in Ilorin, the state capital that the heinous crime was committed on the June 29, this year.
According to him, a case of a missing person earlier reported to the police has now turned to a homicide case.
The Police PRO said, “On 29/6/2021 at about 2308hrs, an unknown young person, later identified as Samuel Peter Tsado, ‘m,’ of Patigi town in Patigi Local Government Area of Kwara State, went to one Victory Hotel, Patigi, and requested for the service of a commercial sex worker by name Abigail, ‘f,’ with other names unknown.
“After the monetary negotiation of N5,000, both Peter and Abigail left the hotel premises to an unknown place, ever since then both of them were not seen again.”
However, he said the police, on the receipt of the report of missing person, swung into action, at the instance of the state Commissioner of Police, who directed the State Criminal Investigation Department, SCID, to conduct discreet investigations to unravel the matter.
Okasanmi averred that investigations led to the arrest of one Samuel Peter Tsado, who confessed that he actually contracted the deceased for sex; he also confirmed that both himself and one Mohammed Agbara, ‘m,’ a.k.a. Madi, hatched the plan to do so.
Tsado was said to have confessed that the two of the agreed and planned how to make money ritual, and in furtherance of their desires, they planned on how to source for the human head that would be needed for the money rituals.
It was in the course of this that Peter Tsado took off to Victory Hotel, in the town on his motorcycle, where he approached the late Abigail, a sex worker, struck a deal and the sex worker agreed to follow him home after a bargain of N5,000 was concluded, to spend the night with the client.
However, the story was different for Abigail, the sex worker; when the duo of Tsado and Mohammed Agbara pounced on her, strangulated her and severed her head, which they needed for the money ritual from the trunk of her body, according to police investigations.
The findings further disclosed that Abigail’s head was severed with a knife, while the headless body was conveyed by the suspects on Peter Tsado’s motorcycle and dumped in the bush along Patigi – Rifun road.
The police said both Samuel and Mohammed thereafter went their separately ways to cover their tracks only to converge again in Bida, Niger State, on June 30, 2021.
It was in Bida that the deceased’s head was kept in one Mohammed Abubakar, a.k.a. Mallam Baba Pati’s home, awaiting the arrival of their ritualist from Maiduguri, in Borno State, for the money ritual exercise.
The Kwara State Police spokesman further said that investigations took detectives from Ilorin to Bida and Minna in Niger State, where three other suspects were arrested. The trio were said to have confessed to the offence and also owned up to have been involved in an earlier ritual attempt, using a hand of a yet-to-be identified victim.
The suspects took detectives to the bush, where the carcass of the deceased was recovered, but efforts to recover the severed head of the deceased, which was the main target had not paid off at the time of filing this report.
The alleged custodian of the missing head was said to still be at large, but the police, according to Okasanmi, vowed that he would certainly be “arrested and brought to justice.”
Names of the suspects, as given by the police were: Samuel Peter Tsado, Mohammed Gbara a.k.a. Madi, Abubakar Mohammed, a.k.a. Mallam Baba Pati, Mohammed Ahmadu Nma, Bala Karin and three others, said to still be at large.
