Man Poisons Two-Year-Old Son Over Prophecy

To avoid a presumed deadly prophecy, a 32-year-old man, Mr. John Effiong, has allegedly poisoned his two year-old son.
The son, Comfort, was allegedly fed by his parents with a plate of rice laced with poison.
It was gathered that the father, in collaboration with his wife, decided to kill their son in reaction to a prophecy that the child was a wizard, who was attempting to harm his pregnant mother.
Nemesis, however, caught up with them when policemen at a checkpoint on Benin-Abraka road arrested the father and two others carrying the corpse of the child in a “Ghana must-go” bag.
The two others, John Okoh, 43, and Pastor Aniekan Achiobong were arrested for complicity in the murder.
Prophet Ini Monday, who gave the couple the prophecy at his church in Upper Sakponba Road, Benin, has been declared wanted by the police.
The spokesman for Edo State Police Command, ASP Peter Ogboi, advised the public to be mindful of prophecies.
According to him, the police would soon arrest the fleeing prophet, while the victim’s father and two others now in police net would be charged with murder.
But it was gathered that the dead son had been sick for some time, prompting the parents to seek for spiritual solution at the church.
Effiong, however, denied giving his son poison.
He said: “How would I poison my son? When I was caught by the police, I told them that it was my baby I was carrying in the bag. When they brought it out, the baby was shaking his leg. I told them that my son was dead and I was going to bury him.
“They told me in a church in my village that if I was not careful the baby would kill me and that he would still die. The pastor told me the child would not last with me and that he would die.”
A co-pastor in the church, Pastor Aniekan Achiobong, said he was in the church when the parents brought the baby; but that he did not hear when the pastor gave them the prophecy.
He said he was a security man and that he was called by God when he was young.
Okoh said he was not aware that the father poisoned the baby and that when the police arrested them on their way to bury him, the baby was still sneezing slowly.