[News] Blind herbalist accused of defrauding 86-year-old woman of N19m, sleeping with her daughter and granddaughter

An 86-year-old woman has narrated how she was duped of N19m by a blind herbalist in a bid to prevent her children from dying.

 

The woman identified as Madam Alimot, told The Nation that she had 15 children, but they were snatched by death one after the other until she was left with only three.

 

Madam Alimot said after one of the remaining children was hit by a strange illness last year, she stumbled on a weekly programme on a popular radio station based in Ogun state where a blind herbalist was advertised as a man with mystical powers to heal the sick and see visions about people’s life problems.

 

After visiting the herbalist, Owolabi Adefemi a.k.a. Ojunu at his home in Ogijo, another community in Ogun State, for a solution to her daughter’s ailment, she was told that death was hovering around her household and could only be averted through an atonement requiring a sacrifice with a cow.

 

She promptly provided the amount requested for the sacrifice, setting off a chain of subsequent requests for additional money for unexpected sacrifices that gulped a princely N19 million.

 

Before she realized that she had been duped, she had sold her two buildings and her daughter and granddaughter had slept with the herbalist several times.

 

Madam Alimot further revealed that instead of giving her a concoction for the treatment of her daughter’s illness, the herbalist kept saying he could make her rich after making some sacrifice with cows and other expensive items.

 

She said;

“He said we were taking the big cow to Agbara and later changed it to Mowo area of Badagry.

“We were asked to enter the house with our back to the door, and we saw a well-built young man on the floor. He said the cow we gave him money to buy had turned into a man.

“He asked me to pray on the young man’s body and stab him to death but I declined. They took our photographs and I challenged him to take our photograph at the scene while I held the knife in my hand.

“We were shown plenty of cash of different denominations stuffed in a sack. Babalawo Ojunu (Owolabi Adefemi) and one old man called Agbaakin, who we met in the building, then said that we could not take the money because we did not come with the third person. We left the place without the money.

“When we went back to him, he also did not give us the money. Instead, he said the money would just appear in my house with at night.

” Later, he said a monarch in Ile-Ife, Osun State  had summoned him over my matter and that a sum of N2 million was needed to pacify the monarch.

“We ended up paying him the sum of N5 million on that day, but he never gave me any charm for my sick child and the child has not died contrary to what he said to cajole me to sell my houses and give him the proceeds of the sale.

“I sold the house I had built with N9 million for N5 million and gave him the money. I also sold another house and gave him the money, totalling about N19 million.

“I want to collect my money from Owolabi Adefemi a.k.a. Ojunu and Nigerians should help me because I don’t have anywhere to call home anymore.

“I have also developed high blood pressure, among other complications, as a result of this predicament of mine.

“My drugs cost N15,000 and I don’t even have money to buy the drugs as I speak.”

 

 

One of Madam Alimot’s daughters, Bose who spoke to the publication said;

“I

want to plead with Nigerians to help me beg Owolabi Adefemi a.k.a. Ojunu, a herbalist, to leave us alone, because my mother is dying right now.

“He has been collecting huge sums of money from my mother and my mother is panicking now.

“He cajoled my mother to sell two houses and collected the proceeds from the sale of the buildings, yet he has not let go of her.

“My mother was contemplating suicide and we have been begging her not to kill herself.

“I did not know him before until my mother gave the phone to him and he told me that I should follow her to Badagry for a certain propitiation.

“When we got to Mowo area of Badagry, he told us that we would need to buy a cow that cost N280,000 and an additional N38,000 for transporting the cow to the place where the atonement against death would be made.

“He said that failure to do that would result in multiple deaths in our family.

“That day, he took me into a dingy house and asked me to enter the house with my back to the door.

“On entering the place, I saw an old man there who asked me to pray in front of a deity, but I refused.

“He collected the N38,000 meant for transporting the cow from me and we left.

“When we returned to the place again, the old man I saw in the house led us to the back of the building where we saw a well-built man lying helplessly on the floor.

“I asked why the cow was not brought there but he said it was the cow that had turned into the helpless man on the floor and that it was begging not to be slaughtered for the sacrifice meant to avert my mother’s death.

“I was just laughing at his response, and I started shouting blood of Jesus Christ.

“He then gave me a knife to kill the man, saying that a picture of the scene would be taken twice.

“When I refused to take the knife from him, he shouted at my mother who was then visibly shaken when she was asked to hold the knife and pose with the ‘cow’ for a photograph, and she was photographed twice.

“He collected the sum of N3.8 million. I gathered the money from various sources including someone in my neighbourhood and cooperative society. Yet he kept disturbing me, saying that I have to come to pay him another N1.5 million as the balance of the total sum before they would unveil something I don’t understand.