Okunade, who hails from Oyo State, narrowly escaped being lynched last Thursday when some people in the neighbourhood pounced on him.
They alleged that the hair he picked from different salons
was being taken to a herbalist in Cotonou, Republic of Benin, who uses it to
prepare charms for him.
Some people said they found
Okunade’s behaviour bizarre, insisting that there was more to his actions.
It was gathered that the man
had been in the business for some years but nemesis caught up with him on the
fateful day when his ‘business partner’, a bricklayer, gave him away.
An executive member of the
Community Development Association said Okunade allegedly confessed that he had
been buying human hair.
According to the CDA
executive, the victim said he had been using the hair to cure himself of
festering sores on his leg.
Click to read more after the cut.......
He said the suspect denied
the hair was meant for rituals, saying he used to take the hair to a herbalist
to prepare concoctions for his sores.
He said many traditional
medicine practitioners who were there when Okunade was apprehended, said human
hair could only be used for rituals not for curing sores.
He said, “The suspect’s
partner had gone to a barber in their neighbourhood to buy some hair. The
barber, however, refused. The suspect sent his partner to go to the barber’s
apprentice.
“When they got to the
apprentice, he agreed, but unknown to them that the barber was monitoring their
movement. The barber decided to lay ambush for them.
“When he (barber) saw them
with a cellophane bag, he raised the alarm and
many people in the neighbourhood were drawn to the scene. By the time
they checked the contents in the bag, they saw plenty of human hair.
“That was how the community
pounced on his partner and started questioning him about the source of the
hair. It was in the course of that the partner said it was Okunade who sent
him.
“The people moved to
Okunade’s house but he was not around. When he came back and people related the
incident to him, he left the community the following day.
“By the time he came back,
he thought the residents would have forgotten about the incident, but when they
saw him, they mobbed him. It was then he explained that he had sores on his leg
that refused to heal and that he had been curing them with concoction mixed
with human hair.
“The community, not
satisfied with his explanation, decided to hand him over to the police at Sango
Police Station.”
Another resident, who craved
anonymity, said, “We have yet to come to terms with his pedestrian explanation.
As for us, he is not saying the whole truth.
“We learnt that he pays
between N200,000 and N300,000 for each consignment of hair. You can see that
his explanation lacks the essential elements of truth. I am also amazed that
human hair has become a cure for sores.”
The spokesman for Ogun State
Police Command, Mr. Muyiwa Adejobi, said the story was twisted by the
community.
He said the suspect had only
solicited for hair because of his festering sores.
Adejobi said, “The story was
not like that. The man (Okunade) has a sore and he said he needed human hair to
cure the sore. He had not gotten the hair; he only solicited. The community
just raised the alarm which resulted in the man’s car being vandalized.
“He reported to the police
that his car was being vandalized and that they wanted to kill him. That was
how the police mediated to avoid the man being lynched.”
Source: The Punch
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