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Cult link possible in Nigeria killings

Arrested suspects and body parts that were discovered by Nigerian police from forest shrines near the town of Okija in eastern Nigeria are shown at a police station on Wednesday. Police said that priests from a secretive sect were believed to have carried out ritual killings. Two priests and 28 others were arrested in connection with the discovery. PHOTO: AP

Police in eastern Nigeria discovered body parts, skulls and more than 50 corpses, some partly mummified, in forests near where a secretive cult was believed to have carried out ritual killings, officers said.

Two religious leaders and 28 others have been arrested in connection with the cult, which was feared and obeyed by people living near the wooded areas, including one dubbed by local press as "the evil forest," police said.

Investigators are searching near the town of Okija for more remains, police spokesman Kolapo Shofoluwe said on Thursday. "We must go around the forest. As extensive as it is, it may take days," he said.

Police also have recovered about 20 skulls.

All of the dead found so far were adults, and at least one body and four skulls appeared to be from those killed recently, Shofoluwe said. All the bodies were found unburied in coffins, and at least three were headless.

Police believed some of the victims -- businessmen, civil servants and others -- were poisoned. The cult, known as Alusi Okija, is believed to practice a ritual in which people involved in disputes, often over business deals, are exhorted to settle them by drinking a potion they are told will kill only the guilty.

Shofoluwe said the potion itself was likely harmless, but that one of the parties would later be killed secretly by agents sent out by the priests, sometimes by secretly poisoning their food.

The rituals take place at wooden shrines in people's living rooms, decorated with statues of gods and chalk drawings of skulls. Skulls had been found in the shrines of some of those arrested, while others arrested were survivors of the rituals.

Several suspects have fled, and the police is ``chasing after them,'' state police commissioner Felix Ogbaudu said. A register has been found apparently containing the names of several victims, he added, without giving further details.

The ceremonial chief priest suspected of preparing potions for victims was not arrested because of his advanced age.

``He's an old man. We don't want him to die in police custody,'' Ogbaudu said.

A photo taken by a local photojournalist showed more than a dozen shirtless suspects, surrounded by police, sitting huddled around a coffin containing a body and with several skulls nearby.

Alusi Okija -- which takes its name from a local, oracle god and the town -- is an ancient sect of the area's ethnic Ibo people. Few details of the cult were available on Thursday -- but police said the ritual of swallowing poisons to test guilt is believed to have been practiced for "over 100 years."

The practice was originally intended to deter crime, but has become a way for priests and their collaborators to kill and defraud people, Ogbaudu said.
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