Olasupo Yusuf, a thirty-five-year-old herbalist popularly known as Oba Aje of Ogun State, has been arrested for allegedly swindling a robbery suspect of N3.5 million.
His travail began after a General Manager of a popular furniture company in Mowe, Ogun State, Bamidele Daniel Hassan , was arrested by operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad , SARS, Lagos State Police Command, for allegedly snatching official vehicles of former companies he had worked with. Preliminary investigation revealed that the 45-year-old father of two, allegedly bolted with the companies’ vehicles , barely three months after working with them. His previous work place was Imagia Furniture Limited , Lagos, where he went away with a 2008 model Toyota Corolla. So far, two vehicles: the Toyota Corrolla and a 1996 model of Camry which he allegedly took away from another furniture company he worked with in 2009, as General Manager, have been recovered.
The suspect revealed how he lost all the money he had realized , including the cars he took from his previous work places to the herbalist. He traced the genesis of his meeting with the herbalist to 2008, when he started having some challenges. He said he approached the herbalist who is also his cousin, to prepare money rituals for him and had spent over N3 million, only to discover that the herbalist was fake.
According to him, “ I was arrested in connection with the recovery of two cars of companies in my possession. I went away with the official car given to me by my Imagia Furniture Limited, when I was employed as the General Manager, with a monthly salary of N400,000. But the company did not pay me for two months and I left with its vehicle. That was the second place I had worked. I have two Masters degrees in Psychology and Marketing from the University of Ibadan and the University of Calabar respectively. I was tracked to my present work place where I was arrested”. I am the first son and my dad has many wives. I was doing well before I ran my own furniture business. At a point, everything went down the drain. That was when I met the herbalist who is my cousin from the paternal side, in 2008. I thought he was the messiah. But unknown to me that he would add to my problem. “ I had approached him to assist me prepare some charms that would make me get money. I sold one of my cars for N450,000 in order to raise the money he requested to prepare the rituals. He gave me a soap to bath with and informed that a spirit would bring money to me at night. “ When I woke up by 3am that day, to bath with the soap as instructed, I discovered that the soap had disappeared. When I called to inform him, he said that the charm had spoilt that I would need another one. He requested for money to neutralize the spirit so that it won’t hurt me and I gave him N50,000. This was in 2009. He called me again, in 2014, that he had perfected another ritual that would work. He said I should bring N1.8 million and that the spirit would bring me money in dollars. “I went to his shrine that day for the ritual. And a being appeared with dollars and pound sterling in his hands. But as I stretched my hands to collect the money from the being, the herbalist said that I should not collect it that the spirit would take my wife and that of my children in exchange. I told him I didn’t want to lose my family. He said I should bring additional N1 million in one week, so that I could have access to the money. I went to Calabar , sold one of my cars and my wife’s and brought the money to him but nothing came up. ‘Last year, I did a contract job and made profit . The herbalist told me to bring the money for him to do another ritual and I gave him another N1 million. Like the first time, the spirit came with money again and at the point of collection, the herbalist said that I needed to do some rituals which would cost N600,000. He said I should put the money inside a calabash and put it in the river to float. “In the last 10 years, everything I have worked for, was taken to him. Immediately I got money from any contract, I would gather and take it to his place. So far, I have given him N3.5 milion. I don’t know how he did it but I only know that anytime I bathed with the soap he gave me, I would see the spirit with money. The person usually appeared naked with white powder all over him. It was when the police stumbled on my whatsapp conversation with the herbalist , that he was invited, but for my arrest and his, I would never have known he was fake. The arrest has broken his spell on me”.
When approached, the 35-year-old herbalist, Yusuf, stated that a friend of his posed as the being , in order to deceive his cousin. He stated that he earlier told his cousin that he could not prepare money ritual charms but that he deployed the means, when the suspect kept disturbing him. He said: “ He said I should prepare ritual for him to be rich. But I told him I didn’t do rituals. What I did was only soap concoction for him to get contracts and also to find favour before those that would award him contracts and it worked” Asked who was the being that usually appeared in his shrine to the suspect, he replied, “ the person is my friend. There is no spirit anywhere. I rubbed white powder all over him to make him believe it was a spirit. He usually hid in my shrine and appeared with dollars, at the appropriate time. But the so called dollars are fake notes. I paid him between N20,000 and N50,000 at the end”. The suspects according to the Commissioner of Police, CP Zubairu Muazu, who paraded them alongside other suspects , would be charged to court.
