Four suspected ritualists have been arrested by the police over the disappearance of a 36-year-old woman, Aminat Adebayo, who went missing about two months ago in Ogun State.
The suspects, Azeez Raimi, 21; Saheed Yusuf, 33; Michael Awodero, 27; and Soneye Lateef, 39, were arrested following a complaint lodged at the Sagamu divisional police headquarters by the elder brother of the victim, Ahmed Adebayo.
The state Police Public Relations Officer, SP Abimbola Oyeyemi, in a statement on Thursday, said Ahmed told the police that his younger sister left home on September 15 and her whereabouts had been unknown since then.
The PPRO said, “In compliance with the CP’s directive, the SP Taiwo Opadiran-led team embarked on technical and intelligence-based investigation, which led them to a hotelier, Soneye Lateef, in whose facility the victim was seen last.
“On interrogation, the hotelier admitted that the missing woman was in his hotel on that day at the invitation of her friend, Bose Fajebe, who came to the hotel with her boyfriend.
“The said Bose Fajebe invited the missing woman to join them, but as soon as she arrived, the hotelier picked interest in her and started having a romantic discussion with her.
“While the two of them were discussing, Bose and her boyfriend left.
“The hotelier further explained that the missing woman also left not quite long after and later in the night, he also left the hotel with two of his friends, namely Saheed Yusuf and Michael Awodero, to meet a herbalist, Azeez Raimi, who was to carry out an Ifa divination ritual for them and that they were all at the shrine throughout the night.”
Oyeyemi explained that contrary to the claim by the hotelier that the missing woman was not with them at the shrine, the Ifa priest confirmed that he saw the woman in the vehicle with Lateef and Yusuf outside the shrine.
The PPRO added that the priest insisted that the two men later left with the woman.
According to Oyeyemi, the herbalist said they came back the following morning without the woman.
Oyeyemi said, “He also gave a vivid description of the woman he saw, and when her photograph was shown to him, he confirmed it as the woman he saw with Soneye Lateef and Saheed Yusuf.
“Michael Awodero also corroborated the herbalist’s statement that they were all at the shrine throughout the night, but the hotelier and his friend, Saheed, who is an Internet fraudster, left the shrine with the woman in the night and came back in the morning without her. Further investigation revealed that the woman must have been used for a ritual purpose.”
The police spokesman said the state Commissioner of Police, Lanre Bankole, had ordered that the suspects be prosecuted.
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