A 22-year old man, Salisu Lawan, landed in trouble in Gombe State for allegedly killing his 65-year old biological father, Usman Bello, with a pestle over dreams of his father being involved in witchcraft and being behind his woes.
P.M.EXPRESS reports that the incident happened at Akko Local Government Area of the State, where they reside.
Police operatives from the Gombe State Command have arrested Lawan for murder and detained him where he is undergoing interrogation over the alleged offence.
This was disclosed by the Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Mahid Mu’azu Abubakar, while parading Lawan alongside other suspects arrested for various crimes in the state.
The image maker confirmed that the suspect, Lawan, allegedly killed his father by hitting him with a pestle on the head on allegations of witchcraft.
“The Police is concerned that cases of murder are being reported and linked to witchcraft, where people alleged seeing others in their dreams and concluded that they were responsible for their plight and subsequently leading to the killing of the suspected witches.”
The PRO stated that there was another case linked to witchcraft involving an old man, who sought the assistance of a young man to help him cross a stream but was equally attacked with a plank by the young man, and his body dumped in a river.
ASP Abubakar stated that the Commissioner of Police, CP Etim and the Police frown on such acts and directed that members of the public should desist from carrying out such acts because the issue of witchcraft is not in the law.
“You cannot do what we call trial by ordeal, bringing somebody, taking him to herbalists that he must confess that he is a wizard. That is trial by ordeal and is not known in the law. In a case when a person confesses by himself that yes, I am this. The law can work on him and we know what to do with him,” ASP Abubakar added.
He called on traditional rulers and religious leaders to preach against trial by ordeal because it was a serious offence, which could land the person that committed it or any party involved in the case in court.
The suspect, Lawan, pleaded for mercy, claiming he did not know when he hit his father with the pestle and killed him.
The suspect said he was informed in the morning that he had committed murder, because he had slept from 7am that fateful day till 7:30pm and was told that he kept calling the deceased’s name in his sleep, as the one who was responsible for inflicting the sickness on him, but that he did not know when he attacked him.
The suspect will likely be charged before the Court for murder under the Criminal Law of the State, which attracts several years of imprisonment or life imprisonment but that will be after the conclusion of investigations by the Police.