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Shocker for IGP at Okija shrines
�Detainee�s wife dares police
FELIX UKA, Awka
"I �M disturbed. I
couldn�t believe my eyes."With these words, Inspector-General of Police (IGP),
Mr. Tafa Balogun, yesterday poured out his soul as he visited the Okija shrines
in Ihiala council area of Anambra State. He arrived there at exactly 2.27pm.
Wife of Mr. Osita Ndukwu, one of the arrested priests,
yesterday, in a related incident, during the visit, asked the police to free her
husband and arrest the deities for the corpses at the place.
Tight security surrounded the IGP�s visit
with over 200 heavily armed mobile and regular policemen led by State
Commissioner of Police, Mr. Felix Ogbaudu, guarding the place.
On the IGP�s entourage were Deputy
Inspector-General (DIG) of Police, Mr. Sunday Ehindero and former police
commissioner in the state, Mr. Adanaya Gaya.
The entourage took a narrow foot path,
fringed with cassava plants, which led to the Ogwugwu Isuala shrines in
the dense forest.
At the site, a mere 10-minute walk,
several corpses in different states of decomposition lay scattered on the rough
ground.
Significantly, though the corpses were
shrunken with some skeletons headless, many of the former had their clothes
intact.
It was not known how long they had been
laid there in the open and why they had not rapidly decomposed, though police
sources spoke of local embalment.
The IGP�s entourage also saw heaps of
feathers which littered the area.
At Ogwugwu Akpu shrine, Mr. Balogun
and his team were shown an even greater number of corpses.
Interestingly, a few houses were spotted
here with the owners or inhabitants around. A pepper soup shack was also seen.
Mr. Balogun proceeded from there to
another shrine, Ogwugwu Idigo, said to be a relatively new shrine, but no
corpses were sighted there.
A former commissioner for Women Affairs in
the Mbadinuju administration, Mrs. Bridget Obi, who also followed the entourage,
caused a stir when she was introduced and was asked by the IGP why she had
failed to report the shrines matter to the authorities since she hails from the
Okija area.
But Mrs Obi responded by saying she had
never before visited the shrines, except yesterday, pointing out that stories
from the place all these years were like fairy tales to her.
Speaking later, Mr. Balogun expressed deep
shock at the findings.
"However, I�m happy at the co-operation of
the Okija people. I�m happy with Obed Igwe, the informant. The police
commissioner in Anambra and his men did a good job. We will leave no stone
unturned here," he said.
The IGP reassured Nigerians that contents
of registers found at the shrines will be made public at a later date while his
men are presently contacting those whose names appeared in the documents.
On the over 100-year-old chief priest of
Ogwugwu Isuala, Chief Okoli Orji Ewulu, not arrested by the police, the
IGP said police will not lose sight of him as age has nothing to do with the
law.
Osita Ndukwu is among 32 persons still
being held by the police following the recovery of corpses and skulls at the
Okija shrines.
Speaking with Daily Champion at the
family�s beautiful residence near Okija, Mrs. Stella Ndukwu implored the police
to release her husband, saying he is innocent of any proposed charges of murder,
indulgence in ritualism or related matter.
"The police should go and arrest the deity
which took the lives of the people (corpses) and free my husband. He is
innocent," she said.
The 22-year-old housewife also said since
her husband�s arrest and the dismantling of worship at the shrines, starvation
has hit her family.
Her five kids, Mrs. Ndukwu claimed, are
now going hungry with business at the shrines no longer booming.
Daily Champion
noted that the Ndukwus� tasteful residence has a live crocodile in a pool.
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