A Magistrate’s Court in Yola, Adamawa State has ordered seven defendants to restore the health of a three-year-old girl whom they allegedly bewitched with a strange illness.
Magistrate Umar Gangs-led Criminal Area Court I gave the defendants 24 hours to comply with the order.
One of the defendants is Halima Jonta, 60, of Dumne town, Song Local Government Area of Adamawa.
Five children, aged between four and six, were joined in the case.
The defendants were arrested and arraigned over allegations that they inflicted the victim with a life-threatening illness.
During the court sitting, Jonta said she and two other alleged witches had killed seven people in seven years since she joined the cult in Dumne town.
The defendants, who were apprehended in Dumne, confessed to have bewitched the child and accused one another and other relations as being responsible for initiating them into the cult.
They claimed that efforts by them to resolve the child’s illness were abortive, adding that a person named Dudu, now at large, was the only one who could undo the spell.
Presiding over the matter, Gangs ordered that Dudu be arrested with immediate effect.
The magistrate said on Monday that the court would hold them responsible if the health condition of the child deteriorated.
He lamented that the affected minors had not reached the age that they could be sent to a remand home, let alone a custodial centre, and wondered how the children were initiated into the cult.
