What would have prompted a dismissed soldier of the Nigerian Army,
Corporal Jimoh Obabu Salau, to take the life of 22-year-old Idowu Aliyu, an
indigene of Adogo Egayi in Kogi State in a gruesome manner? The whole crime
remains a mystery which the police and the family of the deceased are still
battling to unravel.
Idowu, who is an undergraduate of the School of Health Technology
in Zamfara State, met her untimely death in the hands of her assailant, a man
haunted by an alle-gation that he killed his wife and two children and a police
woman sergeant in 2003.
The suspected ex-soldier was said to have pretended to be a
commercial mo-torcycle operator, popularly called Okada rider, offering Idowu a
free ride from her village to Osara, en route Lokoja. The un-dergraduate was
eventually killed.
The Police Commissioner, Kogi Command, Alhaji Muhammed Musa
Katsina, who paraded the suspect before journalists, disclosed that the
assailant took the lady to the bush after she was hypnotised and hit her head
with a heavy object which led to her death.
He said the suspect was caught following a tip off from the Fulani
herdsmen who saw him go into the bush with the deceased.
Salau had earlier raped the lady before killing her, removing many
parts of her body including her private organs, the police informed.
The police boss also disclosed that Salau was once convicted and
sentenced to death over a similar offence by the Appeal Court in Kaduna before
he was later released “through the help of his wealthy client.”
Revealing more of the past activities of Salau, the police
commissioner said the ex-Soldier’s travails started from Liberia when he was
discovered to be involved in cannibalistic activities by the Nigerian military
authorities and was subsequent-ly dismissed from service.
When he came to Nigeria, he fully de-veloped interest “in the
human-eating habit and turned it to a trade.”“He continued to engage in it
unabated until the arms of the law caught up with him when he killed a pregnant
police ser-geant in 2003 in Kaduna,” the police com-missioner further revealed.
Mr.Ojo Adinoyi Ali, a man who simply identified self as a brother
to the deceased, who spoke to Sunday Mirror, expressed bitterness in an
emotion-laden voice that the community had been in turmoil following the
gruesome murder of the young Idowu.
He said the community was demand-ing for nothing but justice in
bringing the perpetrators of the act to book without further
delay.
But the suspect, Salau, though did not deny that he was involved
in the act, how-ever alleged that the lady was captured by some politicians and
she was already in the vehicle with them when they invited him to come and
carry her to Lokoja.
He confessed that it was an agreement between him and the sponsors
to kill the lady and bring parts of her body to them. He said his intention was
to collect money from the politicians so as to be able to treat his arm which
he was injured in a recent ‘accident’.
The cannibal ex-military man equally indicted three persons who
are now in the police custody.
It would be recalled that serial killers and ritualists have for
the past months taken over the Central Senatorial district of Kogi State,
leading to the death of promi-nent persons, including traditional rulers, a
director in the state civil service and a custodian of masquerade from the
area.
This has led to calls from many prominent indigenes from the area,
including the speaker of the state House of Assembly, Honourable Abdullahi
Bello, on the traditional rulers and the law enforce-ment agents to intensify
efforts, to fish out those behind the dastardly acts.