17-yr-old plucks out neighbour’s eye to procure charms for disappearing

police

Isah Hassan, popularly known as Shahidai, wanted powers at all costs. That puzzled everybody, including the police. But his motivation, at 17, was strong; he could pluck out an eye for it.

And he did.

The traditionalist he contacted at Tsinke, Taraun LGA, Kano asked the teenager to bring a human organ.

Madam Sayyada Furera Abubakar is 107 years old. She had dozens of children and grandchildren. Shaidai must have thought the older the herbalist, the more potent will the charm be.

He needed the power to disappear at will, into the thin air.

Shahidai said Sayyada asked him to bring an eye for the ritual. And the closest one he could get—or ambush— was Mustapha Yunusa’s, some five years younger.

After gouging the boy, Shahidai ran away. But he wasn’t done yet.

When the vigilante group in the area later arrested him, he was about pouncing on the next victim.

He told the police the witchdoctor sent him.

She has denied asking him to gouge out Yuusa’ eye.

“He’s lying,” she said.

“I have more than 50 grandchildren and I did not remove their eyes.. Why should I do that?”

Explaining his own unfortunate aspect of it, Yunusa’s father Dahiru Ahmad he took his son to Malam Arma, for schooling in Dan Tsinke area. But the father received a call that my son was at Murtala Hospital.

The doctors then told him how Shahidai attacked Yunusa, plucked out an eye, and bolted.

“We thank God with the aid of the police and the medical personnel, they have tried their best and the boy has recovered now surviving with one eye.

“Yesterday, around 1am, I received a call that the boy who removed my son’s eye had been arrested and he had confessed that he committed the offence,” he said,  a week after the incident.

Ali Abdulhamid is the Vigilante commander of Dan Tsinke said they arrested Shahidai along the border of Kumbotso and Tarauni.

“He removed the boy’s eyes two weeks ago and to God be the glory, we arrested him while trying to remove another one.”

According to him, the young perp confided in a vigilante member. The older man could not bear it. So reported the matter to the vigilante leader.

“We asked him to go ahead and play along.

“From there, he asked him to come along with a knife that he will use in removing the eye and still we asked him to give him and followed them behind to the crime scene where we successfully arrested the culprit.”

Shahidai confessed to having committed the crime