Date: 2012-03-18

A 30-year-old man, Mr. Rufus AjibolaAina has absconded after slaughtering his 85-year-old mother, Madam Felicia Aina for rituals. Rufus, a native of Ejiu-Ayegunle in the Irepodun local government area of Kwara State, was said to have been provoked with the high level of poverty persisting in his life, and deemed it fit to offer his aged mother for rituals on the request of a herbalist.

Investigations revealed that the accused person, though hailed from Ejiu-Ayegunle, resides in Omu-Aran, headquarters of the local government, and had returned back to his native town due to the special operation.

According to Rufus' elder brother, Mr. KayodeAina, "Our mother gave birth to eight children. After slaughtering our mother like a goat, Rufus had shaved the hairs on her private part, arm pit and head and also fetched her blood with a bowl."

"He had run away with all these materials he got from the sensitive parts of the remains of our deceased mother. No one could trace his whereabout," he lamented.

While lamenting the incidence, Kayode told Sunday Pilot that Madam Felicia suffered so much to get Rufus educated at the College of Education and later in the university, where he obtained a degree.

Another reliable source disclosed that the victim, on arrival from a church service that faithful day, proceeded to the farm to fetch some palm wine for her customers before coming across her untimely death through a son, whom she had laboured so hard to groom.

An eyewitness, who claimed anonymit,y told Sunday Pilot: "I met Rufus on his way to the farm and he pleaded with me not to tell anybody that I saw him in the village. I discovered that his clothe was stained with blood after which I traced his footpath and met his mother lying down between ridges, dead."

All efforts to trace Rufus, the source said, proved abortive. He, however, said he immediately rushed to the village centre to inform the entire community of the happening.

In his reaction, the traditional ruler of the village, Chief Felix OjoOgunbiyi , expressed sadness over the embarrassment brought to the community by the murderer, noting that such incidence had never occurred in the community nor its neighbourhood.

Ogunbiyi said: "With the taboo committed by Rufus, it is obvious that he is also going to be killed by his own son. He has given this community a bad name and he shall not go scot free."

He, therefore, appealed to the law enforcement agencies to come to the aid of the community so as to stop the reoccurrence of such ugly incidence, and also warned his subjects to desist from acts capable of perishing an entire community.

While confirming the incidence, the police spokesperson in the state, Ezekiel Dabo said that his men and their counterparts in the National Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, are working assiduously to get rid of the accused person.

Dabo promised to charge him to court immediately he is caught to face the wrath of the law, and also appealed to citizens of the locality to give any useful information that could lead to the arrest of the suspect.