LAGOS, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA) – A 22-year-old man, Salisu Lawan has been arrested by the Gombe State Police Command over alleged murder of his father, Usman, Bello, with a pestle in the Akko Local Government Area of the State.
Spokesperson of the command, ASP Mahid Muāazu Abubakar, disclosed this in a statement on 9 August, while parading Lawan alongside other suspects arrested for various crimes in the State.
According to the PPRO, Lawan allegedly hit his 65-year-old father, with a pestle on the head on the allegation of witchcraft.
The spokesperson noted that he is concerned with the rate of murder cases linked to witchcraft, where people alleged seeing others in their dreams and concluded that they were responsible for their plight and subsequently leading to the killing of the suspected witches.
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Abubakar said CP Etim and the entire Police Command frowns at such act and directed that members of the public should desist from carrying out such acts because the issue of witchcraft is not in the law.
“You cannot do what we call trial by ordeal, bringing somebody, taking him to herbalists that he must confess that he is a wizard. That is trial by ordeal and is not known in the law. In a case when a person confesses by himself that yes, I am this. The law can work on him and we know what to do with him,ā Abubakar added.
He called on traditional rulers and religious leaders to preach against trial by ordeal because it was a serious offence, which could land the person that committed it or any party involved in the case in court.
Speaking with Journalists during his parade, the suspect pleaded for mercy, claiming he did not know when he hit his father with the pestle.
He said he was informed in the morning that he had committed murder, because he had slept from 7 am that fateful day till 7:30 PM.
Lawan said he was told that he kept calling the deceased’s name in his sleep, as the one who was responsible for inflicting the sickness on him, but that he did not know when he attacked him.