Sakawa Story: Greedy Footballer In The Mix: Chdscghana Condemns The Act

"This would have been very tragic had it not been the intervention and good work of the man who acted as the spiritualist and the police"..."This is another act of violence against women, this time by her own son, oh poor mothers, what have we done to deserve this?" These are some of the words of the C.E.O of a Ghanaian non-governmental organisation, the Centre for Human Development and Social Change,Ghana aka CHDSCGhana reacting this morning via the phone to the story of a greedy footballer from Volta region who attempted to use his own mother in a ritual for magic money popularly known as SIKADURO or recent slang, SAKAWA. Ms. Felicia Okine has condemned this attempt as diabolic and dangerous to the society, an act of violence against women and has appealed to the authorities to put structures in place to prevent such incidents to happen in secret and to protect the rights of women especially aged mothers in rural Ghana.

The Sakawa story culled from the Ghana's number government owned newspaper, GRAPHIC is reproduced below:

"A 22-year-old footballer who allegedly offered his mother for rituals has been arrested by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service.

The suspect, Enoch Adjei, who plays for Soccer Rex, a Jasikan-based Volta Regional Division One team, had wanted to kill his 50-year-old sick mother (name withheld) at Jasikan in the Volta Region to make it easier for him to transport the human parts needed for the rituals to Accra.

But the buyer, who was acting on police instruction, told Adjei to bring the mother alive to ease the difficulty of having to transport her body parts for the rituals.

Adjei was apprehended while with his mother at the Tetteh Quarshie Interchange in Accra yesterday.

Briefing journalists in Accra, the Public Relations Officer at the CID Headquarters, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), Mr Joseph Darkwah, said Adjei managed to convince the mother to accompany him to Accra for a business contract.

How Adjei met the spiritualist
Adjei was said to have travelled with some of his teammates to Kasoa in the Central Region to play a football match against another team.

Mr Darkwah said when the bus got to the Mallam-Kasoa road, Adjei spotted the billboard of a spiritualist who had advertised how he could make one get rich quickly.

Adjei was said to have quickly picked the phone numbers on the billboard.

Mr Darkwah said some months later, Adjei called one of the numbers and introduced himself as someone who was interested in becoming rich as quickly as possible. He was also said to have told the spiritualist that he was ready to sacrifice his mother for money.

Unknown to Adjei, the man who had picked the call was not the spiritualist but a different person who bore the same name as that of the spiritualist.

Mr Darkwah said the supposed spiritualist, who gave his name only as Nana and acted on police instruction, told Adjei to bring the mother to Accra.

The spiritualist was also said to have told Adjei to come along with an unused knife that would be used to perform the rituals.

The spiritualist was said to have told Adjei to bring the mother yesterday to perform the rituals in Accra.

Mr Darkwah said Adjei was arrested immediately he alighted at the Tetteh Quarshie Interchange, in the company of his mother.

Upon investigations, Adjei was said to have confessed to the crime."