The Bayelsa State Police Command has arrested a 42-year-old man, Samuel Otasi, for allegedly poisoning his three sons after a pastor told him they were wizards withholding his destiny.
In a video shared on social media platforms on Monday, the police at the Igbogini Divisional Headquarters in the state said Otasi forced his sons aged 10, 12, and 14, to drink a deadly insecticide known as Sniper with the help of a relative who was also arrested.
According to the narrator in the video, Otasi decided to kill the children following a prophecy by the pastor identified as George Odugo, who claimed that the children had been bewitched by their mother to destroy his life and destiny.
One of the boys was said to have miraculously survived and managed to escape from the bush where they were tied up and poisoned and later revealed how his father and uncle forced them to drink the chemical, leaving visible rope marks on their bodies.
Medical staff who treated the surviving child confirmed that he arrived unconscious and in critical condition and upon regaining strength, he informed authorities that his two siblings were still in the bush but by the time the police arrived, the two boys had already given up the ghost.
The wooden crates used to carry their bodies from the forest were shown to journalists during a visit by the Bayelsa State Commissioner of Police to the crime scene.
