By Iliya Kure
Police have arrested a 17-year-old boy (name witheld) in Kano, northwest Nigeria, for gouging out the right eye of a 12-year-old boy (name witheld) on the guidance of an elderly woman for preparation of charm.
The charm was to make the 17-year old teenager disappear at will whenever he wanted to.
The suspect was said to have lured 12-year- old boy, an Almajiri, into a bush, tied his hands and plucked his right eye out.
Also arrested was the second suspect, Furera Abubakar, a grandmother who claims to be hundred years old.
Police Public Relations Officer, SP Abdullahi Haruna Kiyawa, told journalists on Wednesday that the command received information from a resident of Sheka Dantsinke Quarters, Kumbotso Local Government Area, Kano, on March 20, at about 3pm that an unknown person took the 12-year-old boy to Rimin Hamza Quarters, Tarauni LGA, used a sharp knife to remove his right eyeball and fled with it to an unknown destination.
The PPRO said, “On receipt of the report, the Commissioner of Police, Kano State Command, Aama’ila Shu’aibu Dikko, raised and instructed a team of Operation Puff Adder, led by the Divisional Police Officer, Sheka Division, CSP Alfa N. Muhammad, to proceed to the scene.
“The team immediately went to the scene and rushed the victim to Murtala Mohammed Specialist Hospital, Kano, where a medical doctor confirmed that the eyeball of the victim was forcefully removed using a sharp object, and the victim was admitted at the said hospital.”
He stated further that as a result of intelligence gathering the principal suspect was arrested.
The teenage suspect, was picked up with the help of local vigilante on Tuesday, March 29 at about 1am.
During interrogation, the suspect had confessed to committing the act.
The culprit revealed that he had asked his friend (name witheld), aged 16, how and where he could get a charm that would make him disappear at will whenever he wanted.
It was then, according to the suspect, that his friend directed him to his grandmother, Furera.
After meeting with the elderly woman, the suspect said she instructed him to get an eyeball of a human being and bring it to her to prepare the charm for him.
It was in pursuit of this that he lured the victim into a nearby bush, tied his hands and forcefully used a sharp knife to pluck his right eyeball out of its socket.
The suspect further stated that after taking the eyeball to the woman, she requested N500, which he did not have. She now told him to keep the organ in a safer place and bring it whenever he got the money.
This, he said, made him to keep the eyeball for three days, which he later found to have decomposed, resulting in him throwing it away.
The command’s spokesman said that Commissioner of Police had ordered the case to be transferred to the Criminal Investigation Department for further investigation.
He added that the suspects would be charged to court after the conclusion of investigation.
