| CAMP OF HORROR
• Boys, girls recount ordeal in the hand of
Islamic scholar, police raid camp
By SEYE OJO, Ibadan
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
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Some of the many victims of the illegal camp in ibadan.
Photos: DADA SASONA
• PHOTO: Sun News Publishing
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Alfa Abdul-Ganiyu Imoniyi may have established his Mondarasat
Abdul-Ganiy Islamic and Spiritualist Centre in Ibadan, the
capital of Oyo State, with good intention, but it has turned
out to be a torture camp for students sent for quoranic education
and rehabilitation.
It was learnt that Mondarasat Abdul-Ganiy Islamic and Spiritualist
Centre was founded by Alhaji Abdul-Ganiyu Imoniyi at Ile-Tuntun,
Oke-Eleta area of Ibadan about 25 years ago.
As gathered, no fewer than 200 students had graduated from
the centre and are currently standing on their own as Islamic
educators and spiritualists in the South-west of Nigeria.
Following a tip-off, the men of Oyo State Police Command stormed
the centre on Friday 15th February, 2008 and arrested everybody
they met there. In the operation, 23 youths, aged between
13 and 27 were rescued. They comprised 18 boys and five girls.
Police position
Parading the principal suspect, Alfa Abdul-Ganiyu Imoniyi,
before journalists on Friday, along with his accomplices and
the victims at the state Criminal Investigation Department
(CID), Assistant Inspector-General of Police in charge of
the command, Prince Udom Ekpoudom, said that the police discovered
that many Nigerians were detained unlawfully for many years
in the camp.
According to him, “some of the victims were tortured
to death and buried without reporting them to the police.
The ladies among them became sex machines for the people living
in the place. To make matter worse, the ladies were over-used
to the extent that the young girls have not menstruated right
from the time they arrived the arena and they are not pregnant.”
Prince Ekpoudom pointed out that the children were given concoction
which was mixed with water and excreta to drink, adding that
after drinking the stuff, some of the children would become
unconscious and sleep for three days. He accused Alfa Ganiy
of shaving-off the pubic and armpit hair of the children for
spiritual purposes.
He was accused of maltreating his victims by putting handcuffs
on their legs, denied them good meals, fed them with excreta
and sour soup, beat them silly, among other inhuman treatments,
Ekpoudom alleged that Alfa Imoniyi was giving out the girls
under his care for marriage at his own discretion.
The suspect position
But the principal suspect, Alfa Imoniyi disclosed that he
founded the camp in 1983 as an Islamic school and spiritualist
centre where he had trained and rehabilitated over 200 students.
He explained that all the students under his care were voluntarily
brought to his camp by their individual parents, stressing
that most of the students had cases of mental problems which
necessitated handling them with iron hand.
His words, “The allegations against me are not true.
The truth is that some of the children used to smoke Indian
hemp, some do not sleep at home again and some engaged in
other vices which made their parents to bring them to my centre.
Their parents wanted me to teach them sound and qualitative
Quoranic education and pray for an end to their mental problems
so that their lifestyle would be positively transformed. We
had done things like these in the past and God accepted our
prayers on them.”
On the match-making for the girls, the suspect maintained
that he used to do it with the consent of their parents who
asked him to give their girls out in marriage to God-fearing
men.
On hygiene, Alfa Imoniyi revealed that he did organize bathing
for the children every three days and that his own biological
children too were not acquiring Western education but Islamic
education.
Confessions of the rescued children
A 13-year-old male victim, Master Wasiu Azeez, whose genital
has rotten and was scratching his body which was full of rashes,
while narrating his ordeals said that the Islamic scholar
did not allow them to take a bath and that the food he was
given was too small.
“Alfa used to give very small ‘eba’ and
sour soup in the morning and in the evening. He beats us everyday
without any reasons. He gives us faeces to drink. He would
mix it with ‘Olora-Igbo (a typical herb), our own urine
and palm oil for us to drink. I was in primary five when my
parents withdrew me to the place,” he said.
Another victim, who identified himself as Miss Mulikat Bashiru,
brought to the camp from Foko area of Ibadan, said she did
not have mental problem as claimed by the suspect. She said
that the suspect tricked her parents to make her become a
student in the place, adding that she had finished her primary
education at Methodist Primary School, Agbeni, Ibadan and
waiting for enrolment into secondary school, before she was
taken to the camp.
She said: “Right from the time I arrived the camp, I
have not menstruated up till now. I am 19 years old and I
have spent three years in the camp. I was raped many times.
All of us girls are raped, and we did not know the identities
of those who raped us because they used to come in the night.
We are not pregnant, but we observed that we did have a kind
of hard protrusion below our navels which always give us severe
pain. Alfa gives us excreta to drink and he does not listen
to us.”
Miss Fatimo Ajibike, 15, said that she had spent three months
in the camp. Recounting her bitter experience, she stated
that her father told her that his younger brother wanted to
see me, so she went to see him.
“When I got there, he told me that one of his children
was in hospital, and that I should go to the camp to collect
‘agbo’ (herbal concoction) for his sick child.
I went to the place with a view to collecting the concoction,
but I was surprised that I was not allowed to leave the place
until the police came to our rescue. Alfa did give us excreta
to drink and I have been raped several times. I have not seen
my menstruation since I got to the camp,” Ajibike declared.
In the words of Miss Zainab Ogunjinmi, a 23-year-old girl,
who had spent two years in the camp, “it was my father
who brought me to the place after my secondary school education.
In the camp, we sat down from morning till night and if we
stood up, may be to talk to another person; Alfa would beat
us with fan belt.
“Our parents did not know that was how he was treating
us. Our parents did pay us occasional visits, Alfa didn’t
allow them to enter the place we were kept. If our parents
came, they would bring us down from upstairs, unlocked the
chains on our legs and when our parents left, they would put
it back,” Ogunjinmi stated.
She said that her parents live at Ore-Meji area of Ibadan
and that whenever they paid her a
visit, she dared not tell her parents her experience, because
those who did that in the past, Alfa gave them beating of
their lives.
Zainab Ogunjinmi explained that she was not chained like others
because her father paid the sum of N60,000 to the suspect
for special treatment.
Nurudeen Olawoyin is another victim of the alleged torture.
He disclosed that he holds a Higher National Diploma (HND)
in Business Administration from Yaba College of Technology,
Lagos. He said he had worked with the Federal Ministry of
Education in Lagos as Principal Personnel Assistant between
1990 and 1997 and that he met the suspect in 2003.
Said he: “When the Federal Ministry of Education was
transferred to Abuja, I wanted to go with them but my parents
advised me that I should not, they said that I should be self-employed.
Hence, they invited me from Lagos to Ibadan and in Ibadan,
they rented a shop for me where I sold things like battery
and torchlight. I looked for white collar job in Ibadan, but
I could not secure any.
“So, I decided to travel to London but my parents insisted
that I should go to Saudi Arabia.
This prompted my mother to take me to Alfa Imoniyi for special
prayers. When I got to Alfa’s place, I was beaten mercilessly
after which I was chained and I spent over three years in
the camp before I escaped.”
Olawoyin said that he found a way of escape when he fell sick
and he was taken to hospital for treatment. On his return
from the hospital, he was relocated from the torture chambers
upstairs to where Arabic was taught downstairs. He declared
that he wittingly beat all the security arrangements put in
place by Alfa Imoniyi and ran to Sanyo Police Station to report
the development.
Aftermath of the parade
Right from Friday, March 15 when the suspect was paraded before
journalists in Ibadan till the time of filing in this report,
a group of supporters of Alfa Ganiy has been reporting everyday
at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Oyo State
Police Command, Iyaganku, Ibadan where Alfa Imoniyi was detained,
demanding his release on grounds that all the allegations
him were untrue.
Responding, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) for
Oyo State Police Command, ASP Olabisi Okuwobi, said that the
issue should be seen beyond religious perspective and that
law should be allowed to run its course.
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