According to the Lagos CP, Echidume was considered a ritualist because he allegedly lured some underaged boys into his home and shaved off their pubic hair.
Monday Ubani, Vice President of the Nigerian Bar Association, has condemned the parading of an alleged ritualist arrested by the Nigeria Police last week.
The Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Imohimi Edgal, on Monday, paraded before the media, over 40 criminal suspects arrested in various parts of Lagos State.
One of these suspects is one Victor Echidume, whom the police alleged to be a ritualist.
According to the Lagos CP, Echidume was considered a ritualist because he allegedly lured some underaged boys into his home and shaved off their pubic hair.
The CP said the case was reported to the police when one of the mothers of the boys noticed her son was losing weigh without any symptom of illness.
“The allegation came to the fore when one of the children started losing weight and his parents now called him and asked, 'you’re not sick, why are you losing weight?' He then confided in one of his parents that he was one of those who had been going to the said Echidume’s house, where the suspect shaves their private parts and armpits.
“The parents of the boy quickly took the boy to the police and made a report. Further investigations revealed that this same Victor Echidume, 43 years, has also been shaving the pubic hair of these young, unsuspecting children and many victims are involved.”
However, Ubani, who is also a former president of NBA, Ikeja branch, said the police accusations would not stand the test of forensic analysis.
He queried how the CP came to the conclusion that it was the alleged act of shaving the boy’s pubic hair that led to his weight loss.
He said that the CP, as a lawyer, ought to have known better. “Being a lawyer, he knows... that the boy said he was losing weight, you now assumed that this man must have used him for ritual purposes. It does not gel at all.”