But for last Saturday’s discovery of the callous maiming of hapless victims by a team of fleeing ritual killers in a forest located at Soka area of Ibadan, Oyo State, the place didn’t in any way betray the gory activities perpetrated there.
With the chirping of birds, singing of trees and balmy breeze complemented by the enthralling scenery from a portion of Ogunpa River overlooking the forest, it cuts an appealing picture from afar. A journey into the forest however removes the veil of innocence and naturalness noticeable from a distance.
The Ibadan forest is not inhabited by thousand demons as captured in one of the fictional narrations of the late magical realist, Daniel Fagunwa. But it was one where bloodthirsty ritual killers stripped their victims of all humanity. They beat, starved them, raped the females and hanged the captives one after the other to remove essential parts of their bodies for sale to buyers who thronged the place under the cover of the night.
A journey to the forest begins at Soka bus-stop, approximately three kilometres after the old Ibadan Toll Gate along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. From the Lagos end of the expressway, the road to the forest veers right and goes past a publishing company. It is the only passable route to the place.
There were burnt vehicles parked at the entrance into the forest. It was clear that victims were stripped immediately they were driven in, perhaps, in an unconscious state. This was because clothes of casualties were beside the vehicles. The vehicles were probably burnt to remove all traces of identification from them.
The route to the forest through Soka across the Ogunpa River compels passers-by to remove their shoes and walk a sandy terrain.
A tiny block building close to the entrance was full of shoes of several sizes. A bag which had been ripped showed many ‘second hand’ shoes of men, women, boys and girls.
With barbed wires covered with shrubs, it would be futile for any victim to attempt escape. Such a determined victim would have cried bitterly after being caught and seriously injured by the hidden wires.
Perhaps, this might have been the case of a victim whose skull was found alongside others at a particular portion of the forest. Escape could have been a luxury word in the place, which was chilling with heavy adornment of charms. The charms were reportedly used to hypnotise their victims.
Though the expansive land was once used as a site by Costain West Africa Company while constructing a canal to the Ogunpa River, the warehouse and containers the company left behind many years ago became the torture chambers and accommodation for victims.
A brick storehouse built by the company was full of clothes, notebooks, writing materials, underwear, perfumes, purses, toothbrushes and other valuables. In it, there were also rosaries and rubber mats. A bale of clothes of various designs, sizes and fabric on the bare floors showed that the victims ranged from the very old to the very young of both sexes.
The two rooms in the warehouse elicited stench while other two rooms accommodated abandoned bags of cement that had become solidified. The human parts merchants seemed to have operated unhindered in the forest as evident in the erection of an open makeshift guillotine where captives were believed to have been killed in turns.
Fresh dung littered everywhere. SUNDAY PUNCH gathered that cattle breeders used the place. But no one could say where they had gone since the den was uncovered. Their relationship with the killers was neither known nor was their complicity in the barbaric act.
In various parts of the forest, human parts such as ribs, skeletons and skulls were seen either thrown carelessly on the ground or in holes. Many of those who visited the place on Tuesday were scared when officers of the state health services discovered human parts of 10 victims while they were combing the forest to fumigate it.
A policeman who spoke on condition of anonymity told our correspondent that a crocodile was killed near one of the containers. He said it was possible that the killers kept it there and fed it with the flesh of their victims while they threw away the bones after removing the organs they needed from their bodies.
As the rescue team toured the forest, more discoveries were made. A blood-soaked scrotum and intestines were seen with flies swarming over them including pants soaked with blood.
A faction of the Odua Peoples Congress led by Dr. Frederick Fasehun joined the police and other local security groups to search for the remains of the victims.
It was not clear if the abductors lived with the victims but the belongings of the captives indicated that those captured and killed were many.
A First Bank debit card belonging to one Adesanya Esther Bukola was found in a distant portion of the forest by our correspondent.
The Chairman, Ibadan South-West Local Government, Mr. Taoreed Adeleke, who spoke on Wednesday during the planned clearing of the forest, said the state government would later decide on what to do with the place.
He lamented that the killings occurred in the place for many years unchecked.
Copyright PUNCH.
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