Kano teenager plucks out almajiri’s eye to prepare charm against bandits

A teenager in Kano has plucked out the right eye of a 12-year-old Almajiri boy, as an ingredient to prepare a disappearing charm.

The incident occured on Wednesday at Sheka Quarters, Kumbotso Local Government Area of Kano when 17-year-old Isa Hassan lured his victim to a nearby bush, tied him standing upright, plucked out his right eye with a sharp knife and abandoned him to bleed to death.

Explaining the circumstances behind his action, the suspect said he desperately needed the charm to overpower bandits, who often terrorize him and his friends in the Bauchi State forest each time they are searching for charcoal, which they produce by felling and burning trees in the forest.

According to Hassan, his friend, Sani Abdulraham, had hinted him that his (Abdulraham) grandmother, 107-year-old Furaira Abubakar, was an herbalist that could help him prepare a charm to make him invisible to the gunmen terrorising them in the forest.

He said the old Furaira had then asked him to produce a human eye, as an ingredient to prepare the charm.

However, Furaira, while speaking to newsmen at the Kano Police Command Headquarters in Bompai, denied having any knowledge to prepare disappearing charms.

She admitted that she is an herbalist, who assists people, with herbs but does not engage in producing disappearing charms.

While confirming the incident, the spokesman of the Kano state Police Command, Abdullahi Haruna Kiyawa, said shortly after the police received the disturbing report, the Commissioner of Police, Sama’ila Shu’aibu Dikko, raised a team that rushed the victim to the hospital, where a medical doctor confirmed that his left eye was forcefully removed, with an object.

Kiyawa stated that the suspect was arrested after the police trailed and apprehended him, adding that he has since confessed to committing the crime.

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He added that his confession also helped to arrest Furaira, whom Hassan claimed sent him to get the eye.

Abdullahi further stated that the case has been transferred to the CID Department for discreet investigation, at the end of which the suspects would be charged to court.