Child snatching for rituals on the rise in Kano
Child snatching for rituals on the rise in Kano
By AMINU ABUBAKARPublished TodayNewsRating: Unrated
Kidnapping-for-rituals is on the rise in Kano State. In the last three months, no fewer than 50 of such incidents have been reported. Agence France Presse’s (AFP’s) AMINU ABUBAKAR reports.

Child abduction for ritual killings is on the rise in the Nigerian city of Kano, say officials and advocacy groups who blame the trend on greed for political power and quick wealth in this northern commercial centre.

Body parts from toddlers and pre-schoolers are prized ingredients for lucky charms thought to make people rich or rise up on the political ladder.

In the last few months, kidnapping of young children has increased in Kano - the second largest city after the capital Lagos and long the economic heart of the north - raising concern among parents and officials.

"Ritual killers are now on the prowl in the city on an increasing scale, abducting children for rituals for wealth and positions," said Ibrahim Abullahi, spokesman for the state government’s Societal Re-orientation Directorate. The agency is charged with improving public morals in this predominately Muslim city.

"This trend has been on the rise in the last three months as the number of complaints we receive from parents about their missing children has more than doubled," Abdullahi told AFP.

"The abducted children are usually between two and five years old," he said.

Radio transmissions are replete with announcements about missing children, say radio staffers.

"An average 50 parents placed announcements with us on their missing children every week in the last three months, compared to 20 such complaints before," Aisha Kabir of Freedom Radio told AFP.

Kabir is in charge of receiving announcements on "lost and found" items and missing people, on the popular privately-owned station in Kano.

Aliyu Mashi of a Kano-based child welfare advocacy group called the General Improvement of Persons Initiative (GIOPINI) blamed the alleged upsurge in the rituals on greed, in a city that revolves around commerce in a country notorious for corruption.

"We are always bombarded with reports of child abductions, which have become a daily occurrence in Kano, and such children are invariably used for human rituals to make money," Mashi said.

"People are desperate for wealth and power, and , they feel they have no other choice but killing children for black magic to achieve their aim," Mashi said.

Sadiq Isah Radda, a sociologist at Bayero University in Kano, said fetish priests here are known to favour children’s body parts for get-rich-quick potions.

"Although human sacrifice has been part of the tradition of many African societies," said Radda, "in the case of this society, children are what the priests prescribe, "

In some African societies, albinos are targeted.

Mashi said children are easy prey in Kano as parents burdened by poverty and illiteracy are not always attentive to their brood and let them roam. The child captors then lure unattended youngsters using candies, biscuits and in some cases magic.

In March, 16-year-old banana hawker Awwalu Baffa confessed to a Kano court of working for ritualists to abduct children for ritual murders.

Baffa, now in a juvenile rehabilitation centre in Kaduna city, 200 kilometres (124 miles) away, said he used a motorcycle helmet to bewitch his victims.

"When I placed the helmet on a child’s head, he would disappear and I would use the motorcycle my employer gave me to convey the victim to a house where he would be killed for rituals," Baffa had told a court hearing attended by an AFP reporter on March 23.

"In my presence, my employer, Hassan and his three associates, slaughtered a five-year-old boy I supplied them for rituals," he said.

Although the police agree there has been an increase in the number of missing children, they insist not all of them are abducted.

"We do receive reports of children missing but in some cases the children are not abducted but they just miss their way home," Kano police spokesman Baba Mohammed told AFP.

"And when such children are found, parents don’t care to inform us that they have found their children and so it becomes difficult for us to know how many of the missing children are actually stolen," Mohammed said.

Kabir of Freedom Radio, however, said about half of the parents return two months later saying they still have no trace of their children.

The morality agency, meanwhile, has stepped up radio campaigns urging parents to keep a close eye on little children. But Mashi says this is not enough.

"Residents in every community have to work together in monitoring strange faces that show up in their neighbourhood," he said.

Kidnapper na kidnapper. . . .there's nothing like good, better or best kidnapper.

Oboy,they are all kidnappers.