Chineme Okafor journeyed
into some remote villages
around Abuja where twins
are sacrificed to gods
because it is considered a taboo to be born a twin in
such communities, though
the Scottish missionary to
Nigeria, late Mary Slessor
led a crusade that stopped
the barbaric act decades ago
Away from the hub of
civilisation in Abuja, a
neigbouring dry and dusty
community on a string of
semiarid topography within Kwali and Kuje area
councils has become
infamous for its centuries-
old traditional practice of
killing twins and children
whose mother dies at childbirth.
The Bassa-Komo-
Gbajingala indigenous clan
in Abuja will no doubt be on
a very close public scrutiny
for a long time to come. The agrarian clan with a
lifestyle built around
subsistence farming, fishing
and hunting has a cultural
belief that loathes multiple
births by its women just as the death of a woman
during childbirth naturally
puts the life of the baby
bornby such women on
‘death row’.
Last Friday this reporter walked through the various
communities where the
practice still exist for
several hours and truly
there are signs that the
birth of a twins in these community is a risky
adventure by its women as
it is considered a bad omen.
Likewise, the death of a
woman at childbirth
exposed such children born alive to the practice that
makes them a sacrifice to a
god generally referred to
as Tuwa.
Though the villagers
claimed the practice as discovered had persisted
for centuries and was
allegedly stopped in 2006,
the CMF Coordinator said
he rescued twins from
being killed in the community only last
November.
Without prejudice, our
source visited the closed
community such as Tubudu
along with the North- central Coordinator of the
Christian Missionary
Foundation (CMF), Olusola
Stevens, whose decades of
missionary expeditions in
rural hinterlands across Nigeria has been a mixture
of joy and pain accepted by
him and his wife with warm
hearts of contentment.
Albeit doubts of such
claims, Stevens whose efforts have seen about 49
children that were once
labelled “evil” saved at
various times from 1999 up
until as recent as
November 2012, from such practices, proved
extremely useful in getting
first-hand narrative of
what transpired in the
villages and thought-
provoking story of a tribe’s “ignorant”
disposition to its offspring.
Discovering the Practice
Discovering the practice
amongst the Gbajingala clan
did not come so easy for the CMF which was founded
in 1982 by the late tele-
evangelist, Bishop Idahosa.
As narrated by Stevens, it
took him and his wife about
18 years of constant investigation to discover
thatthe clan was frequently
engaged in deliberate
murder of its twin offspring
as well as children it
considers to have come through questionable
circumstances like the
death of a woman at
childbirth.
According to a narrative
that was confirmed by an indigenous missionary who
is locally known as Gambo
but has now taken up a
new name reflecting his
voluntary acceptance of the
Christian faith, we gathered that the clan had often
sacrificed its offspring to
the god, Tuwa for bountiful
harvest from their farms. It
was when an indigenous
woman refused to give-up her child for such sacrifice,
that the long-held communal
secret was revealed as
she gave outher baby to
Stevens and his wife for
custody to help save the life of the young girl.
Gambo whose name
translates to mean a male
child after twin birth, also
said that while children
were regularly sacrificed on false charges that they
were responsible for the
death of their mothers
during childbirth that the
clan equally experienced
frequent mortality deaths occasioned by the practice
of traditional birth method.
He indicated that there
could be possibilities in
proportionatedeath and
burial of infants with their dead mothers.
“Because the women often
die at childbirth due to
traditional delivery modes
and following the wide
beliefand practise of killing and burying babies that
come through the dead
mothers, there is every
reason to believe that the
practice is still predominant
in some of the villages amongst the clan,” Stevens
contributed, prompting
further questions on the
status of such children.
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