By Yusufu S. Bangura
A missing lecturer at the Geology/Geography Department, Fourah Bay College, Kabba Santigie Bangura, has been allegedly found buried in a shallow grave inside the shrine of a famous ‘witch doctor’ (occultist) Ibrahim Kalokoh.
What happened?: On the 6th March, the pictures of the said lecturer went virial on social media that the he had got missing and a week ago, the Cyber Unit of the Waterloo Police Division arrested two men in connection to the mysterious disappearance of lecturer Bangura.
What ASP Jalloh said on the interview: In an interview on Radio Democracy (FM 98.1) ‘Gud Morning Salone program’, Spokesperson for the Waterloo Police Division, Assistant Superintendent of Police, Alieu Jalloh said that the corpse found at the shrine of the said occultist was the body of the late Kabba Santigie Bangura.
He added that on Saturday 15th April in the afternoon hours, they received intelligence from Sherbro Town community, 4 Mile at Waterloo that there is a certain smell coming from a particular house owned by one witch doctor and that they were not satisfied with.
He said upon receipt of the intelligence himself together with other police personnel went to the scene and upon their arrival the said house which was inhabited by a witch doctor was identified to them.
ASP Jalloh further said the house was already abandoned by the fugitive occultist, so they entered the house and discovered a heap that was grave like. He said the heap was dug in the presence of community members and they discovered a corpse.
“After the discovery of the corpse on Sunday 16th April, a group of people from Freetown have identified the said corpse as Kabba Santigie Bangura, who went missing on the 6th of March 2023. However, some personal belongings of the said lecturer, including his T-shirts, trousers, among others, were also found inside the said shrine,” he said.
He said armed police officers have been deployed in and around the vicinity of the shrine to safeguard the corpse waiting for the government’s pathologist to exhume the corpse and conduct autopsy to know what killed the said lecture.
He said 6 people have been arrested; comprising four men and two women and one the women was the wife of the occultist. He concluded that all of them are now helping the Police with investigations.
The bigger picture: The issue of Africans visiting witch doctors to provide them with good luck or avert dangerous happening around them is not a phenomenon, but this tragic event especially when it involves a University Lecturer is strange.
And what next? Will similar incidence continue to happen in Waterloo unabated, when the community is frequently on the spotlight for ritual killings and other heinous crime? Will this tragic incident be the last as it is never the first? Observers are curiously waiting to see what would be police actions to curb such occurrences in waterloo.
