A piece of land acquired by the Nigerian Air Force many years ago at the outskirts of Ogheghe community in Ovia North East Local Government Area, Edo State have turned out to be an evil forest which has become a source of concern, scaring residents of the community away to a more secured environment.
The yet to be developed land which has overgrown bushes, residents of the community now refer to as “evil forest” due to the horrible activities of some people suspected to be kidnappers and ritualists who turned the land into a dangerous abode.
It was gathered that the people of the community are enraged at the level of nonchalant attitude from security agencies in the state which led to some leaving the community in search of a safer haven following an incident penultimate week where vigilante in the community almost lynched a motorcyclist suspected to be a member of the syndicate from Delta state, but was saved by the intervention of police personnel from the Ogida Police State, led by its Divisional Police Officer.
A source in the area disclosed that residents of the area have been exchanging words with the Edo state police over the confession made by the suspect.
According to the source who spoke under anonymity, the suspect had confessed to the vigilante that he had killed 16 persons, but the Edo state Commissioner of Police, Mr Babatunde Kokumo, while feeding questions from newsmen said it was a case of alleged murder against the suspect and not ritual killing.
Kokumo however dismissed the claim that people were being killed in Ogheghe forest, when he hinted that no incident of killing has been reported in the forest.
Another source in the area, a Forty-six-year-old furniture maker, who identified himself as Mr Felix Ewodaghe, “One day, I was coming back from work, I saw somebody crying and shouting armed robber, armed robber, I saw him crawling from a bush part and I went to help him. On getting there, I started tracing the bush part to see whether I can trace the armed robbers, but I started seeing human skulls and skeletons in the bush. I saw children clothes and shoes in the bush. I was shocked and I carried the victim to the main road where people came to help. But that was when I knew something was going on in that forest. This incident happened early 2017.
Then last week, I was in my store when a commercial motor-cyclist rode to the place and said that they killed somebody in the forest. He said we should go there. When we got there, we met our vigilante people there and I asked them about the incident. We saw the entire community there. They said I should look by my right hand and I looked. Behold I saw a dead man whose hands were tied on his back has two legs tied too. The body was started decomposing. I was shocked.
I observed that there was one motorcyclist that they beat up and wanted to kill before the police came to rescue him. Other motorcyclists were accusing that boy of the killing. Many Okada riders know this particular guy, he uses different motorcycles every day and that was when they started suspecting him.
They said he will lure his fellow Okada people to the forest, kill them and collect their motorcycle. They said they wanted to kill the boy, but the police said no that he should not be killed. I heard that the boy even confessed to the Okada people that he has killed about 16 persons in this forest. But the police took the boy away and that was the end we heard about him”.
Ewodaghe further said “We have stopped passing the road across the forest because there was a time we saw a J5 bus, we only saw that the doors of the bus were open but nobody inside. The vehicle was abandoned there and after few days, we noticed a grave in that area. Due to the fear, our people stopped passing through that road,”
Osarodion Arthur, another resident of the community said “If you notice, our people have fled this community.
The Air Force that owns the place is not developing it and we cannot continue to suffer like this. They are slaughtering our people every day there, using them for rituals just because the place is a forest. Unfortunately, the day vigilante people and Okada riders arrested one of the suspects; the police came and saved him. So police is part of our problem because we heard that the people perpetrating this killing in the forest always settle the police if any of them are arrested. Because of the killings in this forest, our people no longer go to their farms due to fear. Apart from that, when you go into the city and want to come back, no Okada man will agree to bring you to this village due to fear. We are suffering and if this forest is not developed, these killings will continue.
