7 ‘witches’ arraigned in Yola over health of 3-year-old girl

Seven self-confessed ‘witches’ have come before a court in Adamawa State capital, Yola, for allegedly using demonic powers to afflict a three-year-old girl with an illness.

The seven accused persons include a 60-year-old woman, one other woman still at large, and five minors.

The 60-year-old and the minors were rounded up and brought to the Criminal Area Court 1, Yola, by a community leader and Sarkin Mayu Adamawa, Kabiru Garba after learning of the state of health of the three-year-old.

The 60-year-old woman, Halima Jonta, told the court that she and two other women had killed seven people in the seven years she had been in witchcraft practice.

In the particular matter of the afflicted three-year-old, Halima Jonta said she and the five minors aged between four and six years, as well as a woman on the run, had bewitched the three-year-old girl, brought to court still very unwell by her parents.

The kid witches confessed to the court that the old woman, Halima Jonta and the other woman now at large, asked them to tie the three-year-old and put a stone in her stomach.

They also said the soul of a dead person was planted in her.

‘With the soul of the dead in her, she can’t live a normal life,” they asserted.

They said they had untied her and removed the stone in her but that the death image in her remained because removing it was beyond their power.

They explained that it was the woman at large, identified simply as Dudu, who placed the image in her and she is the only one who could remove it.

Ruling on the matter with particular reference with the kid witches, the Criminal Area Court 1 judge, Hon Umar Gangs, expressed anger that little children still so far from adulthood were introduced into witchcraft.

He ordered that Dudu should be found by all means and brought before the court and gave the accused a 24-hour ultimatum to remove all that they had inflicted the three-old-girl with and restore her to perfect health.