The Nigeria police at Bayelsa command has arrested a 42-year-old father of three, Sunday Otasi, for allegedly killing his two sons with a poisonous substance known as ‘Sniper’ over his suspicion of witchcraft.
One of the sons, however, cheated death though he is in critical condition after he escaped from the bush where his father and uncle had tied them to a tree.
The man, who hails from Agbobiri-Okodia in Yenagoa Local Government Area of Bayelsa, reportedly took his three sons, Success Otasi, aged 14; Miracle Otasi, aged 12; and Godstime Otasi, aged 10, to a bush along Glory Drive Road at Igbogene in Yenagoa, where he tied them to a tree with the help of his younger brother, Levai Ayah and forced them to drink the killer substance.
It was gathered that the three children ran into troubled waters sometimes in September last year when Prophet George Odoko of George Odoko Outreach Ministries told their father that his children were wizards and responsible for his illness.
Since then, the three children were reportedly subjected to different kinds of torture by the man and his relatives, who believed that their mother who was no longer in marriage with their father had bewitched them. Otasi, who denied killing his sons, told newsmen that he only brought the children to Yenagoa on December 29, to be delivered at Prophet Odoko’s church but could not get the deliverance done because the prophet couldn’t attend to them.
He added that he decided to give the three children to his younger brother, Levi to return them to his mother in the village. “I don’t know what my brother did to my children on the way back to the village.”
But the surviving son and the eldest, Success, who miraculously survived the poisonous liquid revealed that his father and his younger brother, now at large, took them to the bush and gave them sniper to drink.
The boy who spoke to newsmen at a hospital in Yenagoa where he is receiving treatment said his father told them that they were going to a church service in Yenagoa but diverted them to a bush where they were tied and given sniper to drink.
My father came to take us from our grandmother and told us that we were going to a church in Yenagoa but when we reached the road, he and his brother took us to the bush and tied me and my younger brothers and gave us sniper to drink. I managed to come to the road after I used my legs to remove the rope and people saw me and took me to the hospital.”
Confirming the incident, the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Aminu Selah, said the suspect has made confessional statements while the police were on the chase of the fleeing accomplice. The police boss called on parents to show love to their children and wards, urging members of the public to avoid jungle justice of any kind.
