Ritual: ‘Why I sold my wife for N800,000’

A middle-aged man, Maimako Shephang, has told police in Plateau State that he wanted to sell his wife because he needed money to start a business.
Shephang, who was arrested for attempting to sell his wife, Agnes, to suspected ritual killers for N800,000, was among 26 suspected criminals paraded yesterday by the Commissioner of Police, Nasiru Oki.
The suspect, who hails from Kwalla in Qua’an Pan Local Government Area of Plateau State, blamed the devil for his action. According to him, he does not know what came over him as he still loves his wife.
Shephang said that the temptation came when he desperately needed money to start a business and he got in contact with the suspected ritual killers who needed a victim.

He said: “I intended to use my wife to get money and start a business as she is the only option I had. The people agreed to give me N800,000 but I got N400,000 as advance payment.
“The people told me they needed a virgin but I wanted to collect the money and run away with my wife because I know she is not a virgin. I am sorry had to do this evil thing, it is the devil that tempted me and I fell because I desperately needed the money.”
While briefing journalists during the parade at the state Police Command Headquarters in Jos, Oki said that the police, through collaboration with other security agencies and all stakeholders, had mollified the aggressive tendency of criminal elements and helped in checkmating the activities of cow rustling.
He said: “On August 30, about 1100hrs, the policemen in Qu’an Pan arrested one Maimako Shephang at Kwalla following information that the middleaged man lured and took his wife, Agnes, to a nearby bush in a pretext to fetch firewood.
“On getting to the bush, the man handed over the wife to two men who masked themselves. The two men asked her if she was a spinster and she told them the man who handed her over to them was her husband.
“They told her to run away from the place since the spiritual sacrifice required a woman who had not known a man.
The woman’s husband and one of the suspected ‘ritualists’ have been apprehended by the police and are being investigated.”
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