The story of killing of twins, and infanticide in the Federal Capital Territory in spite of its modernity and uniqueness as the capital city of the most populous black nation in the world, may appear incredulous to those who are doubting Thomases.
But an 11-year-old, Stella Steven, a victim of this archaic and retrogressive harmful cultural practices, told the Nigerian Tribune, that she would not have been alive today to tell her story except for the Missionary and Founder of Vine Heritage Home Kiyi, Kuje Area Council, Pastor Steven Olusola, who rescued her.
“My father’s name is Steven. He is a good father to us. God sent him to save our lives. All of us here bear his name because he is our father and mummy Steven our mummy. He told us our stories. I would not have been alive today if not that God brought him to our community. They care for us, almost everyone of us is in school.
Stella, was thankful to God that the lives of other children and her life were saved from the jaws of death. The Vine Heritage Home is home to not less than 113 children. Stella, was to be buried alive with her mother who died four hours after her birth.
She said she was informed of a cultural practice in her community that when a nursing mother dies, the child is buried with her because of the superstitious belief that the child killed the mother and as such a bad-luck to the family.
Investigation revealed that some area councils in FCT, including Bwari, Kuje, Gwagwalada and Kwali reject twins and are killed whenever a woman gives birth to them. Some communities in these area councils also kill albinos, children who grow upper teeth first and children born with any deformity.
Danladi Daniels, an indigene of Kwali, who confirmed this to Nigerian Tribune, said other children were also sacrificed annually to their “god of fertility”. Every planting season, a child is sacrificed for this purpose. “Although, some these things are gradually dying down now as a result of awareness and sensitisation by the government and some Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs).
The founder of Vine Heritage Home, Pastor Olusola, also told the reporter that the first child harvested into the Home, was to be sacfificed to god of fertility by her father. Ruth, for that is her name, has however, been reunited with her family after staying at the Home for 19 years.
He said: “The work of Christan Mission Foundation (CMF) in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) started in 1989 under our first missionary, Brother Femi and his wife before they left Nigeria for further missionary work in China. While they were working here, they were not able to discover stories of the killing of the twins. Why, I don’t know.
“In 1995, my wife was posted to work under them before they left Nigeria. She was our pioneer missionary here in this village, Kiyi. In 1995, Kiyi, was not as beautiful, motorable, not as developed as this; there was no light, you have to trek kilometres because vehicles did not pass here often. It was while she was here as a missionary that she discovered some cultural practices-killing of twins, children who lost their mothers, albinos and children who grew the upper teeth first and children born with any deformity were also not allowed to live in this community.
“After she got to know about this, she had the opportunity of saving the first child in 1996. She was a special child in the sense that she is not a twin, her mother did not die, she is not an albino and she didn’t grow the upper teeth first but she was to be sacrificed to their god of fertility by her father. It is also known in FCT among the traditional worshipers, especially among the Bassa Komos that at the beginning of every planting year, a new planting season, they offer a child to their god of fertility.
“Usually not that they put the child on the ground and slaughter. No! They use their magical power to kill the child. Usually, what they do is that they select a child after their priest has used his medium to divine which family should give a child. For instance, he says Shola’s family will give the child this year, then they come to me as the head of the family to say okay, it is your turn to give us a child for our god of fertility. The head of the home will say is that child, boy or a girl that I’m selecting. The chief priest will do incantation, transfer the spirit of that child into a goat and slaughter the goat. When the goat is slaughtered the child dies.
“So, you can’t hold them that they slaughtered a child. Even though people find it difficult to believe that. I had a white man who came here last week, and said ‘I can never believe’ but I said thank God you say you are from America. I asked him, how old he was and he told me I said well, you are a generation of people who did not meet magic in America. When the Red Indians, the original land owners were there, they practised magic more than us in Africa.
“Being a Yoruba man, I also know that our people practice a lot of magic. We do that in Yoruba land. I just gave him a simple illustration of what we do in Yoruba land. By way of religious studies, I studied a little of Yoruba cult too. We know that when you want to inflict sickness on somebody in traditional worship or those who practice black magic, you don’t need to go to meet the person in the house. You just make a little effigy, curve idol of wood of that person and say Shola this is you, and once you pronounce Shola this is you, if I put pin in your head, you will be having headache from today and when I remove it, you have a relief. If I put it you should have headache. Even though Shola is in America, it’s what will happen to him. He said ah! And I said it works. Whatever is behind it, I know it works,” he said.
How Ruth was saved
Olusola, further explained how Ruth, the first child that came to the Home was saved. “Actually when the mother was pregnant, she ran to my wife and complained that, “I have lost three of my children to this same reason reason; my husband using my children to sacrifice to the god of fertility, and I’m afraid that I may never have a child. She was lamenting and somebody said go and meet the auntie, the missionary she can help you.
“When she was pregnant with the baby girl, she came and my wife prayed with her that nothing would happen to the baby in the womb, even when the baby was delivered. So, when she delivered the baby girl, the mother brought the baby to my wife in the mission house. The mother said “I have given this baby girl to Jesus, since Jesus can protect the girl from the evil powers.” That was how she brought Ruth and that was the first child,” he said.
The reporter met a local chief among the Bassa Komo community, Alkali Yanusa, who disclosed that the rejection of twins was something inherited from the forefathers of the community. “We did not start that. We only grew up to know that twins are evil children must be rejected. But I should not be the one to tell you whether we have stopped that or not. You find out for yourself”.
He, however, told the reporter that the FCT administration had taken up campaign against the practice. Yanusa, said the people from government were in the community about three or five years ago to talk to the indigenes about killing of twins or any other child.
Bassa Komos notorious for killing of twins
Findings revealed that infanticide is common among the Bassa Komos, with reference to Gbajingala clan. A former traditional priest from the community who got converted to Christianity through the effort the CMF, said: “For instance, if somebody delivers twins, it’s not as if they would announce the killing of the babies. Outsiders would not know what happened. If you really know someone with pregnancy and you asked them when did you deliver, and where is your baby, they won’t tell you that they were twins and were killed. They will tell you the baby died. Of course, the next thing to do is to sympathise with them.
“When we now revealed their secrets that whenever twins are killed they create two mud curves on the wall of their barn and begin to offer sacrifices to the spirit of the twins. The reason behind that is to plead with them not to come back because they believe that they are evil spirits coming to dwell inside men.
“They tell you that when they harvest their crops they do the sacrifice thinking that even if they are to give birth to twins, they will not come because they have offered their sacrifices. Sometimes, they think that if their thing disappears mysteriously, it was the spirit of twins that was angry. So, they offer sacrifices”.
Intervention of FCTA
A source at the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), who asked not to be named because he did not receive the permission of the Minister of FCT, Mohammed Bello, said the story of infanticide in some communities in FCT was true.
According to the source, the last administration of FCT learnt about the horrendous killing of children through some media reports in 2013. It was gathered that the FCTA not satisfied with the reports, constituted a committee that went into some of the villages to investigate the reports of infanticide in FCT.
“They went and investigated and after investigation they came out with positive result that infanticide was going on in FCT. That gave birth to another committee to work with the villagers and their leaders to see how to enlighten them that there was no evil in these categories of children that they should not be killed, they should be allowed to live.
“They were moving from community to community trying to enlighten them. I can say that they covered up to 23 villages. They gave them T-shirts with inscription, “Twins are special blessing from God, let us not kill them and so on. They wrote it in both Bassa language, and Gbariama.
Olusola, Founder of Vine Heritage Home, also confirmed the story of FCTA intervention, that he was even invited by the then Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Senator Bala Mohammed to defend the stories linking him to rescuing of babies and housing them in a shelter in Kiyi.
He said he honoured the invitation and that the Minister was satisfied with his explanation and swung into action on how to address the menace.
He said: “The good thing that has happened today with everybody talking about it and whatever effort the FCT administration has made, it has brought positive result because I’m a rural man and I have a lot of workers with to me.
“Positive result in the sense that now, many people are not killing again. If they say we should not kill the children, let us take them to the pastor. If a nursing mother dies and the baby is alive instead of thinking of what to do with the baby let’s just take them to the pastor. That is what is happening mostly now,” he said.
What the community people say
Lynda Ocheje, a receptionist in a hotel in one of the communities, said since she came from Benue State about three years ago to live in Gwagwalada and going every day to the remote community where she is working, she had not seen anyone with twins around.
Romanus Sule, an indigene of Kuje Area Council, said infanticide was more pronounced in Bassa Komos, but said most of those killing of babies only existed in the time past.
“I must tell you that these things are not happening now. It is true that in the time past, twins were not allowed to live in some of these communities. I can’t tell you much about sacrificing babies to god of fertility for good harvest. Every tribe has peculiar culture and tradition handed down to them by their forefathers and you can’t question some of them,” Sule said.
Invetigations has also revealed that most of these Area Councils lack adequate health care facilities and facilitators, which frequently result in maternal death. A pregnant woman with no ante-natal treatment is likely to die in labour.
Amnesty International
Olusola, disclosed that in 2014, his organisation had collaboration with the Amnesty International and did advocacy in some of the communities. He added that the Amnesty International, Abuja Office sponsored the project. “And I can categorically tell you that in areas where we did that advocacy, five communities, have completely stopped the killing of any child, whether they lost their mothers, whether they are twins. Among them we have four of the communities that now have twins delivered and are nursing them by themselves”.
He, however, said when compared to the whole communities practicing such killings, it appears there is a long way to go “but a journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step”. He said the important thing was to sustain education of the people because the whole thing had to do with a belief system, which nobody could be blamed for.
The children not given out for adoption
Olusola disclosed that the rescued children in his Home were not given out for adoption. He said once in a while he invited their families to come and see their children.
“I always tell them that any time your village is safe for their return, they will return. The first child has returned to her parents. There was no trouble. We told her, her story; of course, all the while she was with us, the mother came and the family members also came to see her.
“The whole thing is to try to change the world view in them. You don’t expect people to just change overnight. It is a setting that has been over decades. You can’t say, you will just engage them for one year and it will be over, no! Gradually, as it happened in Calabar, the practice will be over.
“To the glory of God, as the children grow up we put them in school. You saw me when I was bringing them from school. As from three years we put them in school and God has been helping us to pay their school fees. We get support from friends, churches, even some Muslim people when they see the signboard, they come into the compound and bring in their gifts. Altogether, I have 113 children in the Home,”.
Olusola, however, explained that some of them were children of the volunteers working for him and are in rural areas where there was no access to education.
and then