Story by Iyiola Ayomide
ABUJA-A fake Northern mystic and ritualist has been arrested for allegedly hypnotising and fleecing a Lagos based businessman of the sum of seventy million naira. The fake ritualist and self acclaimed cleric identified as Alhaji Salau Salihu with his operational base in Mubi, Yobe state was arrested after the wool dropped off the businessman’s eye and discovered that the claims of doubling money and enhancing financial prosperity for clients by the fake mystic were after all false. He therefore, reported the ordeal to the police which promptly swung into action and got the ritualist arrested. But the suspect has told the police that he only collected twenty million naira and not seventy million naira as claimed by the businessman even as receipts of transactions suggested that the sum of seventy million naira was actually transfered to him.
Sources said the businessman would not have fallen prey to the fake money doubler’s antics but for the convictions he got from a Police Inspector named Daniel. According to sources, Inspector Daniel was said to have continually urged the businessman on, on the deal saying that he was a living witness to many that the fake cleric had enriched financially through his mystic power.
It was gathered that the businessman who claims to have established extensive networks, including acquaintances within Nigeria Police Force fell to their trick and released the N70m in tranches through his bank to the Alhaji waiting for the money to be doubled until the trick blew open.
Narrating his ordeal, the businessman, Patrick Iga Ogbonna, “Inspector Daniel persistently persuaded me to consider a money-doubling scheme being operated by one Alhaji, a self-proclaimed mystic and spiritualist based in Mubi, Yobe state. He assured me that Alhaji’s powers could bring about financial breakthrough by offering certain prayers and rituals, including the use of a special perfume said to attract wealth. He further said the Alhaji had been doing it for many people and can easily change foreign currencies after performing certain rituals.
“I became sceptical after he started asking for goats, cow and other life animals to be slaughtered for the ritual. At that stage, I started making frantic inquiries which revealed that he also usually uses human beings fo rituals. That was why I hastily demanded for the N70m I had already paid to him through my bank to be refunded.”.
It was learned that his failure to refund the money made the business man to petition the police headquarters in Abuja and the Alhaji was swiftly arrested and detained after he confessed that he received the money from the business man.
Reports said that after his detention with court order, he started making frantic efforts to be released by using some people that claim to be Moslem clerics for him to be granted bail based on fake claims that he is diabetic and needed urgent medical attention.
Police sources said the business man has already objected vehemently to his false claims insisting that he must refund his money especially when he lied that it was only N20m that he collected and not N70m.
The business man also alleged that the suspect has been dupping many Nigerians pretending to be mystic and spiritualist and pleaded with the police to ensure that he will face the full rot of the law to ensure that he will not continue with his criminal acts.
It was not possible to get the reaction of the Force Public Relations Officer ACP Olumuyiwa Adejobi on the matter but sources close to his office which confirmed the detention of the fake ritualist said efforts were on to charge him to the court soonest.