How Kwara State University student narrowly escaped from ritualists
A 200-level female student of the Kwara State University (KWASU), Malete, Dorcas Oluwatimilehin Olanrewaju, last Thursday narrowly escaped death from the hands of ritualists
According to sources, the lady was interrogated by security personnel believed to have visited her Omu-Aran family residence after her release last Friday morning.
Dorcas who is the daughter of the chairman, Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Kwara State Council, Mr. Layi Olanrewaju.
She recalled that she left her off-campus hostel at about 11:16 a.m. last Thursday, after picking up her course registration form but could not find a commercial motorcycle to convey her back to campus.
According to her, in the process of trying to get an alternative transportation, she flagged down an Ilorin-colour painted taxi which unknown to her was being operated by ritualists.
Noting that she was the only KWASU student in the cab, Dorcas further narrated that two passengers occupied the front seat while she was the third passenger at the back. She added that no sooner had the taxi taken off than a female co-passenger sitting next to her complained of cold and requested that the side glass be wound up.
“I became unconscious afterwards,” said the victim, stressing that she regained consciousness in the den of ritualists in the evening of the fateful day.
Dorcas said she was blindfolded and driven to an unknown location, where she met 12 other victims – male and female.
“We were kept in a room. When they touched me, the woman said I was not pure. They started touching my body with some things and the woman said they should go and keep me somewhere, that they don’t need me now, that I’m in my period and it is not the time they need people who are menstruating,”
“ Around 2:00 a.m., one of them called me and started asking me questions. He said where am I from, and that do I know what I was doing there? I said ‘no,’ that ‘I just found myself here’ and that ‘I was supposed to be in school writing my exam.’ At times, they (the ritualists) speak in Hausa but it was not audible.
“They would stay by the door and later open the door and talk. And sometimes, they would come inside and just parade and go. When I got there, we were 13 but I left five people there. The man told me that I should not worry, that he would not allow them to touch me. So, he took me out and that was when I knew we were in a compound. He covered my face and locked me up in the boot. I knew they entered the car and were talking about Ekiti State.
They dropped me around 5.00a.m. “…I knew when we got somewhere, I was almost losing consciousness and the man said he had forgotten to put water in the radiator and he came to the boot, took me out and told me to go.
“I didn’t know I was in Omu-Aran. It was when I started walking around 5:00 a.m. and I got to the roundabout (close to First Bank) before I realised that I was in Omu-Aran.”
If they took people out, it was their screaming that we would hear. I wrapped my school ID card in my back pocket and did not leave any trace that I had a phone on me.”
