May 18, 2022 • 52 mins
In 2014 a group of people looking for their missing coworker stumbled across a run-down building in Ibadan's Soka forest. While they didn't find their coworker, they did find a horrific scene: multiple body parts, personal possessions, decaying corpses, and people alive -- barely -- in chains. It appeared someone had been kidnapping and butchering innocents... but that's just the beginning of the story.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission controlled decades. Most importantly, you are you, You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know, folks. Today's episode takes us across
the planet to a grizzly and continuing mystery. We're exploring
(00:47):
a story with at times terrifying and graphic depictions of
violence and depravity, as well as profoundly disturbing implications for
the present day. As such, this may not be suitable
for all listeners. This is the tale of Nigeria's so
called Forest of Horror. Here are the facts. First, let's
(01:10):
get our Western heads around Nigeria. It's it's no secret
that in the West, in the US and Europe, reporting
of any country in the African continent is often beset
by a lot of prejudice, by a lot of sensationalism,
and by a lot of UM, I don't know, like
(01:30):
you could call it the shadow of colonialism. So as
a result, I would argue many people in the West
don't understand how big a deal Nigeria actually is. It's
it's a huge deal. It's true. It's the most populous
country in the entire African continent, and historically it's been
home to several ancient kingdoms UM, way before Western Europeans
(01:56):
started colonizing the area UM in the eighteen hundreds. This
is a very old civilization with UM tradition and history
dating back centuries. While its roots date back deep into
historical record, modern Nigeria could be described or viewed as
a relatively young country. Uh. It became officially independent UH
(02:20):
as recently as October of nineteen sixty and today you'll
find that it's a multinational state that's made up of
more than two hundred and fifty separate ethnic groups UM
speaking collectively more than five hundred distinct languages. Ya. So
take that American melting pot, You've got a ways to go. UH.
This is also this is also home to some of
(02:44):
the world's largest populations of people practicing Islam and people
practicing Christianity. At the same time, most of the Muslim
population is going to be in the northern region and
the Christian population concentrated in the south. And like every country,
(03:04):
every large country, especially Nigeria, is to a degree a
study and contradiction. When when you hear these facts, folks,
please don't think that this is us casting aspersion. We're
well aware that the United States has a ton of
problems too, right, So no that every every country is
(03:24):
in a glass house after a certain threshold. It's just
I think these contradictions will be surprising to a lot
of people who are not familiar with Nigeria itself exactly. Uh.
One thing we always talk about when we when we
bring up the continent of Africa is the western resource
(03:47):
extraction interests that often pop up in stories that we discuss,
and Nigeria is one of the one of the places
in Africa that it's just full of natural resources all
kinds of stuff zinc, iron, coal, limestone, lead, uh and
one of the main resources oil, all kinds of oil
(04:10):
reserves underneath the earth there. And largely for that reason,
Nigeria is I believe been the twenty five largest economy
in the world and definitely the largest economy on the
African continent. Yeah, yeah, largest in terms of GDP gross
(04:31):
domestic product, and that's why it has That's that's why
it's referred to at times by geopoliticians. I guess you
would call them and the business interests of the world
as the Giant of Africa. It's not just oil and gas.
It's got tons of coal, lead, tin, zinc, limestone. And
(04:52):
you're absolutely right, Matt. It suffers from what is called
the resource curse, which is which is the seemingly contradictory
position a lot of developing countries find themselves in their
resources could be immensely profitable for the government of that
place and for its people, but instead these resources seem
(05:17):
to be extracted by foreign powers, whether private or other
state actors, and with those extraction agreements comes a great
deal of corruption. This is a part of why Nigeria is, again,
like many many countries, beset by problems. The Human Development
Index finds that Nigeria is right now as we recording,
(05:40):
one of the most corrupt nations on the planet. Remember,
corruption is just like one genre of crime. You know,
if you go into the Baskin Robbins of crime, corruption
is one of the flavors. How many flavors does basket
robins have one? Because thirty one alright, so so yes,
(06:02):
corruption is one of those thirty ish flavors. UH crime
is high, especially in certain areas of the country. And
if you if you go to your local UM webs
like if you go to your own countries website or
travel advisory thing we have the State Department here in
(06:22):
the US, then you will likely see warnings against visiting
certain areas. These include the Niger Delta parts of the
northern regions of Nigeria, and they're duty concerns about the
likelihood of street crime against tourists or against foreigners, robbery, assault,
active activities of terrorist groups like Boko Haram, which is
(06:46):
still around even though the news doesn't report on it anymore,
and kidnapping, which is a not infrequent crime and plays
a big part in today's story. It's a matter of fact.
In the Gulf of Guinea where the waters along the
Nigerian coast, there are still pirates to this day, modern
day pirates, so it does have dangers to it, and
(07:09):
then they often are some of the ones perpetrating the kidnappings,
but also targeting merchant vessels and things like that. I mean, yeah, exactly,
And in many cases, you know, you have to exercise
a degree of empathy and understand that a lot of
folks don't wake up and think when I grow up,
(07:29):
I can't wait to commit crimes. People are driven there
through systemic economic problems. So that's just an important piece
of context. Add whenever we have this conversation, still there
we go. It's a melting pot of ancient cultures, it's
an economic powerhouse. Nigeria is still carries the intergenerational effects
(07:50):
of colonization, the resource curse. It's currently out of a
hundred and ninety plus you and acknowledge countries, it gets sticky,
you know, as other countries get mad about it. Out
of all of those, out of almost two hundred countries,
Nigeria has ranked sev uh least peaceful out of all
(08:14):
the countries on the planet. And despite the way it's
portrayed so often in Western media, again, it's really important
for us who have not been to Nigeria to remember,
like every other place in the world, it's chock full
of regular people. They're just doing their best to navigate
day to day challenges, just like anyone else. You know
what I mean, just like anybody else. Regular people are thinking, ah, man,
(08:39):
I really got a pee or I need to eat lunch,
stuff like that. That's where today's story starts with regular people,
a group of people kind of co workers of a sort.
Uh are there these motorcycle taxi drivers and in place
called Ibadan, which is the capital city of Nigeria's oh
(08:59):
Eos state. If you if you look on a map
just for reference, uh oh Eo is like to the
southwest of of Nigeria. It's in that part of the area,
just to give you a mental map. And in one
of these one of these cyclists went missing. The drivers
(09:21):
felt local police weren't helping out, which was not an
infrequent uh not an uncommon opinion in that area. The
police are largely considered to be corrupt. So this guy's
colleagues took the search in their own hands, and they
were not prepared for what they would find. There's no
way they really could be. Here's where it gets crazy.
(09:45):
Calling this next part text from a ghost. They'll see
why in a second. So these taxi drivers, their friend
doesn't just go missing. This guy, a man known as
Kasim in the in the media, UH He is part
of a group called the Occata Riders. That's the group
(10:07):
of these taxi drivers, their friends, they hang out. Some
of them are relatives. They're all connected as the point,
and they start receiving these cryptic, very disturbed text messages
from Cuisine. He says he's been kidnapped, not just kidnapped,
but he's being held captive somewhere in the Soca forest.
(10:29):
Soca is like kind of think of a suburb or
it's a satellite community of Ibadan, which is the capital,
and Soca is off of the Lagos Ibadon Expressway, so
just the situated there. And if you're thinking about Ohio,
the state we were talking about, where it is in
the kind of the southwestern area of Nigeria itself. Ibadon,
(10:53):
the capital, is just south of Ohio, so connecting basically
ebdon An Yo. There's um a series of roads, one
of the main, very main highway, and that's what we're
talking about right here. And Kau seems friends know this
is not a prank, This is not some sort of
(11:14):
uh reality show situation. They know it because kidnapping for
any number of reasons is unfortunately not an infrequent occurrence
in Nigeria. And importantly, kidnappers don't just target you know,
hapless tourists. Anybody can become a victim. The text that
(11:34):
Consim sends to his relatives and to his colleagues described
the area to the best of his ability, but it's
very you know, it's difficult to do so. And he
says that he is currently with eight other people, eight
other strangers in an underground dungeon somewhere in the forest.
And this isn't much. But his colleagues as relatives, they
(11:58):
take it seriously. They first go to the police, and
the police don't do anything. It's it's at least perceived
that way. The group, like the friends of this person Causim,
didn't see any police activity. They weren't a learner of
any police activity. You know, there was nothing. If there
was some kind of investigation, it wasn't happening in the
open right exactly, and they weren't being clued in. They
(12:21):
felt stone walled. That ignored important to New We'll talk
about reporting too in this episode. At this point, the
story kind of diverges into a couple of different narratives.
The New Telegraph, for instance, says that leading up to
this three cyclists in total had gone missing, but other
news sources focus only on this cuisine guy, and it
(12:44):
may be because it was Kasim's friends who were able
to make some headway despite the plausibility of a kidnapping.
Because the local police seemed dismissive, incorrupt, the drivers banded together.
They took the search into their own hands. They say,
we're gonna find our friend, and they did find something.
(13:04):
We'll tell you what they found after a word from
our sponsor. All right, so you are a member of
the Okada writers, right, or you are a member of
Kasim's extended family, and you're going off very little information,
(13:26):
so you start searching all of the areas that might
match up to what this guy is talking about in
his text. Eventually, you and this group stumble across a
building that no one has seen before. None of you
are familiar with it. It's it's kind of newish, but
it's in poor repair, and there's an eerie silence hanging
(13:48):
over the air. You can maybe maybe here some mechanics
working in the distance. They'll appear in the story later,
but at first it just looks like a disused warehouse.
It does before we really give those details. Been, I
just want to reiterate to everybody, how, in my mind
unlikely it is that this small group, relatively small group
(14:12):
of people out searching for their friend was able to
discover this compound because the number of square kilometers or
miles that they had to cover between those two places. Uh,
it's just it's mind it's mind boggling to me, the
number of places that they had to have searched or
(14:32):
you know, that they could have stumbled upon that wasn't
this place, but they did find it. I don't know.
To me, that's that's pretty miraculous and incredib and incredible.
But what they you know, as you said, Been, what
they did find is is I don't even want to
talk about. Hey, no, you want to tell people what
they I'm a I'm a glutton for punishment. Uh, let
me take it. Yeah, it's it's it's rough. Um, so
(14:55):
prepare yourself. It's no joke. Um. They, like you said,
they stummed upon this compound. It was a massive warehouse
eat type space and very poor repair, and upon entering
it they found something utterly shocking and disturbing. Around twenty
decomposing bodies piled up throughout the compound, various dismembered body parts,
(15:19):
college identification cards. That's the part that really creeps me out.
I mean it all creeps me out. Which is that
part discarded you know, uh, clothing you know, um, just
just scattered all throughout the interior of the building, passports,
baby shoes. It was an absolute slaughter house. I mean truly,
(15:41):
you know, an abattoir. There were though I wouldn't call
this quality of life, but people were alive in there
had been chained like animals, um, malnourished, gaunt and weathered
and emaciated. One woman that was found claimed to have
given birth recently and that her child was then taken
(16:04):
by whomever was acting as their jailers. Another victim died
very quickly after being discovered. Um. The details are a
little bit hazy. UM. There's some differing reports on just
how many people were found alive or roaming the compound
(16:24):
and some sort of fugue state. UM, but it's estimated
that eight to ten people were found in chains, and
maybe as many as twenty or more overall at the site. Yeah,
some allegedly in an underground tunnel, some chained out in
(16:45):
the open and then some wandering just just wandering the premise,
And there were a lot of bodies that were found
in the bushes. Some have been put in other buildings
on the compound. The passports and the idea stand out
to me as well. I was able to find the
names that were on the I d s. But we're
(17:08):
not going to put him in the show of because
this should be an ongoing investigation should be We'll get
to that in a second. So let's also mentioned the
the large number of human remains that were found. There
were just bones. They were scattered all over the place,
(17:30):
not just in specific buildings, but just in the wooded
areas on the ground. We're talking full human skulls and
other bones just line around right, which means that these
people had died at different times, so this could be
called a mass grave, but these people didn't die all
at the same time, and the people who were still
(17:54):
alive clearly bore signs of trauma and injury. There are
also things like hands discovered that weren't that experts weren't
able to link to another body or set of bones
on the site. So for the people who make this
(18:15):
initial discovery, this is a horror movie, A hellish scene
come to life. They freed the victims that they found,
they made their escape, they went to the authorities. They
did not find their friend who had been texting them,
and they did not see any people who appeared to
be the perpetrators of these crimes, at least at this time.
(18:37):
Word spreads like wildfire throughout the community. People in the
capital and beyond the Odio capital and beyond, families who
have their own missing relatives from other states, from other
parts of the country. They all start flocking to the area.
It becomes too big for law enforcement to ignore. This
sparks a nationwide controversy, uh and the the authorities start
(19:02):
making public statements. Let's go to Ohio State Police spokesperson
A Labisi Ilio Bountifour, and also we are not native
speakers of languages of Nigeria. Illo Bountifour says, police are
launching a murder investigation and when they arrived, they even
arrest some suspects at the scene. This is fascinating. They've
(19:28):
arrested six suspects. Five of these were security guards that
were apparently armed with guns as well as bows and arrows.
But these six individuals are not publicly named, and very
quickly they disappear from the news. Remember what we say
about speculation and transparency. In the absence of transparency, speculation thrives.
(19:52):
This warehouse is also interesting to authorities because it appears
to be a recent construction. The Soca area is being
developed at this time, and it looks like, uh, some
building companies, This is the initial thought. It looks like
some building companies or some kind of company created this
compound and then abandoned it. May be abandoned it when
(20:17):
they were done with their nearby work. Maybe it was
just like to store equipment. Um, maybe they abandoned it
when some other project was complete. Unclear, unclear to this day. Actually,
and then the locals start saying something really interesting. They say,
this is not a new problem at all. In fact,
(20:39):
they say, we have been going to local law enforcement
for years reporting mysterious disappearances in the area, and in
every case we are dismissed, We're brushed off. And then,
remember we talked about the sound maybe of some nearby mechanics.
There are mechanics who operate near the site, and they
(21:00):
say they had no knowledge of any crimes taking place
until these motorcycle taxi guys discover the compound, but they
say it is weird that they see a lot of
posh vehicles heading to and from this site, often under
the cover of night. This is not a place where,
(21:22):
by the way, you would ordinarily see like a range
Rover or Mercedes just cruising through. No, not at all.
I just have to bring this up, guys. It's so
odd to me that people working anywhere near this compound
wouldn't have known something was amiss. And it's only because
of the reporting I've seen of the smell of these
(21:45):
areas side and how far that smell permeated or are
spread rather throughout the area. There were multiple locations within
the compound and outside the compound where decaying human remains
existed and just sat and uh. The there was one
I think it was one specific reporter from Sahara Reporters
(22:06):
at least that was the outlet that I had seen
it on a couple of YouTube reports done where even
well after the fact, after this place had been discovered,
after it had been even cleaned up a little bit,
there was this smell eat as you approach um. So
it's just it's odd to me that people wouldn't notice
that it's the smell of death. Is that is the issue?
(22:28):
Death has its own smell. Unfortunately, it's easily and fingers
and it spreads, and it's not something a mistake for
anything else. Right, It's not not to sound too woo
woo or hippie, but I believe it smells very different
from just decaying meat. Uh. And this this calls into
question a couple of other things. Uh. One of the
(22:50):
survivors talks about hearing screams when she is abducted, and
she said she didn't know if that was the sound
of people being harmed or if it was the sound
of someone giving birth. So we have to wonder how
close these mechanics were and how sound carries through the forest.
This is not looking good. In short, locals begin to
(23:14):
fear that what the community has discovered is something more
than a lunatic going ed gain and just murdering people.
Due to their own mental state. They believe that someone
has stumbled across a business that some entity or some
powerful group was mutilating, torturing, murdering these people for a
(23:39):
specific purpose, a grizzly magical purpose. And it may sound
weird if you are unfamiliar with the history of the
area to all of a sudden mention magic or magical practices.
But this belief, as surprising as it may sound to outsiders,
(23:59):
does not come from thin air. There is a long
running system of belief amid certain groups in Nigeria, that
and and throughout other parts of the world. By the
way that human body parts can be used in magical
rituals to grant financial uh financial or political success, to
(24:23):
protect you from other evil spells or physical harm, methods
for obtaining the favor of a lover or harming an enemy.
The favor of a lover one is a little bit different.
That's more of a body bodily fluid thing. But but
this is real and if you want to learn more
about similar practices, then you can check out our earlier
(24:45):
work on the dangers posed to people with Albanism in
certain parts of of the African continent. Is that because
it's seen as some kind of curse or some kind
of mystical something, there's a lot of folklore and superstition
surrounding people who have the condition of Albanism, and it
(25:09):
really affects the social integration of people with Albanism in
their local communities. Also, it's a depending on where you
live on the continent, it's already really rough just from
a physical just from a physical standpoint because of the
son exposure. So there's yeah, there's a lot, there's a
(25:31):
lot of straying on people in those in those communities,
especially children. If you have a child who has Albanism,
in some communities, that's seen as a bad omen. They're
treated as unwanted. So there's infant aside occurs as well.
Let's quickly go back a little bit just to this
concept of what what locals began to imagine or think
(25:53):
what was occurring there? Right, And we've got we've got,
uh some of the beliefs tied to perhaps magical or
other some some type of rituals, uh that people could
have been used for, body parts could have been used for.
There's also very you know, humanity has a very real
relationship with human sacrifice. I just looked to your nearest
(26:15):
Bible to see great examples of all the human sacrifice
that uh, we've been putting forward and repeating for millennia.
Um doesn't happen everywhere, it doesn't happen often anymore, but
it still does happen. And also just bringing up, guys,
we just did that episode of Body Brokers. This is
already feeling to me like something we've discussed recently, Like
(26:40):
this feels like a business. What a sloppy business though.
I mean, they're certainly not covering their tracks very well, well,
we'll see, because do they. I mean, the question is
what what means covering one's tracks? Well, you know how
and how much covering is even required given certain assistances.
(27:04):
Let's just say, right, yeah, the question of complicity gets
curious or and curious or yeah, and let's let's stop
for a moment to talk as well about reporting problems
in this case. So in the West, reporting took a
decidedly maccab somewhat sensationalistic bent, at least in some stories
(27:28):
that I got into. Reporters were leaning into old stereotypes
instead of looking objectively at things like chain of chain
of evidence, things like operations of law enforcement and you know,
just regular police procedure the way that you would normally
look at crimes of this magnitude. And this confusion is
(27:50):
further complicated by conflicting statements of police and the local government.
And this is also further are confounded by the fact,
the inarguable fact that there are multiple reports of what
appear to be ritual killings in southern Nigeria in the
years leading up to this discovery. We don't have to
(28:14):
get into all of them, but if you want to,
if you want to get um a sense of this,
you can go to ref world dot org and just
search for an article called Nigeria Prevalence of Ritual Murder
and human Sacrifice Police and State Response to two thousand
nine to two thousand twelve. This is a long read,
(28:37):
so yeah, and this is a you can there's a
lot of that from the Sahara reporters. Here are the
same ones that we've been citing for this um stuff
that was written back in it was around, but you
can find it. Yeah, I would recommend Sahara reporters. You'll
want to dig honestly into the bibliography of the wiki
(28:57):
because that's where you can find some arc hived things
from New Telegraph Online, Vanguard and gr You can also
find a couple of Reddit threads, but I would stick
with the local regional reporting out of Nigeria at the time.
Maybe some of the British stuff as well. Just as
long as you have that caveat about the western eye.
(29:20):
That Vanguard outlet you mentioned Ben that that one I
know had multiple pretty good right ups on the situation
there as it was ongoing. Yeah, it covers the it
covers the riot, It covers that well spoilers, we're almost
their folks. Yes, it does. So let's go back to
a little bounded for the police spokesperson. One of the
(29:43):
first public statements the spokesperson said makes is it is
not a common occurrence in Ibadan or in the state.
The police will investigate this crime in all its ramifications.
They deploy a forensic team to the forest. Authorities attempt
to search a nearby cave upon you know, rumors that
(30:06):
the criminals maybe hold up in there, as if they
hadn't somehow noticed the crowd and ran away. The survivors,
for their part, they attempt. They attempt to assist as
best as they can, but they are in terrible physical
and mental condition. They have survived hellish things. One died
(30:26):
shortly after discovery um Most were struggling to cut through
their trauma and remember any specifics. Some remained in a catatonic,
non responsive, traumatized state. There is one victim that we're
okay with saying we're okay we're sharing the name of
on air because this victim was in recovery. Gave his
(30:51):
full name and related his experience on the record, so
he has given consent this sense his name not few
shoot too. And he said he was kidnapped four months
ago from the capital of Ohio and he was selling
(31:12):
herbs on the street, herbal remedies. He had been sitting
down because he had been on his feet all day,
and he was forced in a car by two men
and then he said that's all he could remember. He
blacked out, and when he woke up, he was one
of those people in the forest in a room chained
to a wall for four months. Can you imagine the
(31:33):
panic and just the the horror, not to mention if
he was like surrounded by decaying bodies and other prisoners.
I mean, it's unclear where they're like other compartments where
folks were being kept, or was it all kind of
out in this open area there or other compartments. It
seems yeah, yeah, And just it's a if you imagine
it's a imagine a brick building that doesn't really have doors,
(31:57):
it's got openings. The windows are in place, it's just
the their openings. But it is made out of brick
and a couple of other materials. It looks unfinished. And
there are outbuildings as well. And if you've been to
if you if you've traveled to some developing countries, then
you've seen structures like this before. You know, often in
(32:18):
Central or South America there'll be cinder block structures where
there is a door opening, maybe there's a sheet hanging right,
or maybe their sheets hanging in the apertures for windows,
but there's not like glass or wood and hinges and
all that. And and part of the reason for that
is maybe the project loss funding or maybe it's unfinished.
(32:41):
But also depending on the climate, you may not need
to insulate against cold weather because it just might not
get that cold. So there are a number of reasons
this could happen. Where are mosquitoes will get you. You
gotta get netted up, getting that at up, unless that
(33:02):
invented a cure for mosquitoes, unless he gets to deploy that.
But that's a that's a different that's a different story altogether. Uh,
we do know that bugs were a problem. They were
on the survivors. I can only imagine with no intervention,
with nothing protecting you or any you know, even just
like spray of some kind. I mean, you could absolutely
(33:23):
get very sick from those bites. Um. It's interesting too,
we're talking about kind of this, like you know, urban
decay and projects that you know, maybe lost funding. Uh,
just you know, in the landscape of this part of
the world. UM, I guess it would make for a
pretty good ruse to have officials stopping you and saying
that they're part of a quote urban renewal initiative and
(33:45):
because you please come with me, you know, the guys
of like we're gonna help you out. We're gonna like
put you in a new living situation or something right,
or force you to go. Yeah, this is okay, So
let's talk a little bit about this. This is of
the uh statements by multiple victims. They said that their
kidnappers had said they were officials of a urban renewal initiative,
(34:10):
and because they were officials, and because they were praying
on people who didn't have the money for a bribe,
these folks felt that they didn't have a choice, right,
and an urban renewal initiative it has a it has
a couple of unfortunately similar themes with things that have
(34:32):
happened in the United States not too very long ago. Uh.
And I just want to plant that seed and then
we'll we'll see what kind of uncleaned trees, perhaps from
the conversation later. Crowds, Yeah, crowds. Crowds of people from
Oyo and other parts of the country gather at this site,
(34:54):
and those who arrive before the police have cordoned off
the area are a astounded and no small part just
disturbed by what they find. You have to remember that
there's a time interval here. The local communities are connected
via mobile phone via word of mouth, so they are
(35:16):
much more effective at getting the word out before the
authorities take official or public action. So the people beat
the police to the scene, is what we're saying. And
when they're there. And also remember a lot of these
people potentially have a missing person from their family or
friend group that they're searching for, right and when they
(35:37):
hear about the just sheer amount of bodies uh, and
they hear about living victims being found, it makes it
makes them reasonably think this might be an opportunity for
closure or even the rediscovery of a loved one. So
some of the people who arrived there, they say they
see the chains, they see what they recognize as magical
(35:58):
charms or the making of those charms, and they see
a slab, and the slab appeared to have blood on it.
It looked like this was where victims were taken and mutilated, assaulted,
or killed. The police arrived, tensions are high. They've corned
off the area. People are demanding to be let in
(36:19):
because they want to search for their own loved ones.
And just a few days after the discovery, a riot
occurs between law enforcement and concerned citizens. Law enforcement fires
live rounds into the crowd. At least one woman is
hit by a stray bullet and later dies as a result.
(36:40):
Local herdsman Falani herdsman are operating in the area and
because of one of the one of the knives found
at the scene of that of the warehouse, other people
who are not herdsman start thinking, hey, these guys are responsible,
and retaliation they start killing their cows. They say, look,
(37:03):
they say, the same thing, Matt, that you had mentioned rightly,
So I thought of it too, about the mechanics. They say, look,
you are so familiar with this area. You live in
step with this land. You cannot claim that you didn't
know what was going on there. So everybody is looking
for a perpetrator, right, and this is where the governor
(37:29):
of Ohio steps in. And this is where it begins
to get even more like true crime or a noir story,
somewhat of a mix between HP Lovecraft and True Detective.
You'll see what we mean after a word from our sponsor.
(37:51):
So the local governor has to step in. This is
blowing up. He visits the scene to call him the situation,
and you can go to a couple of different outlets
and read excerpts of his speech. Long story short. He
vows that they're going to find the perpetrators. They're going
to excavate the area, and they're going to find any
(38:15):
other remains. They are also going to revoke made a
big deal about this, revoke the right to land ownership
for whomever might own the land. And he's he allieds
past that point and then he taking ownership of it
right right and uh. He also says the government, like
(38:37):
the locals, had no knowledge of this atrocity. This reassures
some members of the community, but not everyone is convinced.
There's a guy named Iodel Addie gun and Addie gun
once upon a time was a secretary of the Ohio government.
And he says the current governor is lie and that
(39:01):
his uh, his visit to the site, his claims of
innocence were little more than a than a ruse a performance.
Addie Gunn says that a cover up is afoot. He
says that the current governor's administration didn't just know about
(39:22):
this compound, but that they created it as part of
a failed, abandoned urban renewal project. Yes, it turns out
that the urban renewal initiative was real, but its existence
only it leads to more questions. I think maybe for perspective,
(39:43):
we can talk a little bit about similar things that
have happened, loosely, similar things that have happened in states
in the US. There have been cases where one occurred
in Atlanta during the Olympics, where people, in an attempt
to beautify their city for visitors, said let's get the
(40:03):
bad element, the rough element out, and so they would
give unhoused or homeless people one way bus tickets go
wherever you want, you just can't come back. And this
happened in Hawaii. Hawaii actually built an island where they
were telling unhoused people, yeah, you can totally go this island.
Will make sure you have food and everything. You just
can't come back to Hawaii. They'll also give you a
(40:27):
plane ticket in Hawaii. I think to the one way
because I'm getting these weird I don't know, I'm getting
images of Hamsterdam from the wire where you can look
that up if you don't know what that is. It
feels like something that had good intentions maybe at the beginning,
this urban renewal project we're talking about here, and then
it turned into something just completely different. Sometimes with all
(40:48):
the best intentions, things can spiral out of control and
kind of take on a life of their own. You know,
look at Police Academy. Yeah started police Academy too, right.
Uh this uh, this, this is true, and this maybe
indeed be one of the possibilities. So Iria Gunn says
that this area, the site of this horror, was acquired
(41:14):
by the current administration two thousand eleven, and it was
meant to be a rehabilitation center for the mentally unwell
and the destitute who are getting taken off the streets.
But he says the administration didn't provide funding or oversight
to maintain it, and those allegations, if they're true, are
(41:36):
incredibly disturbing. He goes into further detail about this, and
you can find this this he is actually saying this.
He says between two thousand and eleven and there was
a beautification plan, there was a committee headed by someone
named Tomy okay Uh, Special Advisor on Environment and Habitat,
and this committee gathered the mentally ill and the extremely
(41:59):
poor and placed them in this compound to get them
off the streets, and then just forgot about them. So,
from atta Gun's perspective, this opened He seems to believe
this opened the door for criminal activity, for ritualistic trade
and human body parts. He says the state government went
to sleep, and people of dubious character probably found a
(42:23):
ready market by the merchandise they wanted. So he's not
saying that the government itself actively created this Charnel house,
but he's saying because of the government's negligence and arguably incompetence,
other forces were able to come into play and to
(42:46):
leverage this for their own ability. Locals would tend to
agree they take it Further, though, many of the locals
were convinced the government knew more than it was letting on.
Some like out of Gun do stop short of saying
the government actually knowingly participated in ritualistic slaughter. But others
think it goes deeper. And that's one of the big
conspiracy theories. It's one that continues in a way even today,
(43:10):
almost a decade later. Could the powerful upper crust of
Ohio and societies and other areas have actively operated a
body parts factory using these remains for magical purposes. It's
a disturbing question, and it may sound sensationalistic, but this,
again is something that locals in the area believe on
(43:32):
what they perceived to be pretty solid evidence. You know.
That's why we have to walk through some of the
context here and you can learn more about this story
from multiple angles. It's freely available. But eventually the Western
media turned away from these developments. Other things started happening
in other parts of the world. The story went cold,
(43:54):
as we record and may have two The murderers remain
officially uncas the kidnappers remain officially uncaught. The crimes remain
unsolved to this day, and uh it seems that the
authorities would like the community to move on, because if
you visit Soca today, you're not gonna see the remains
(44:16):
of this warehouse. Yeah. I don't know. Something smells bad
from here in Atlanta, where it feels like there was
definitely something going on that they at least the police.
At least the police, we're told not to do certain things.
I I just get that feeling. That's my opinion. But
it feels that way something went really really wrong with
(44:40):
the urban Renewal project and they just went that's not
something you need to worry about. Isn't that a plot
point in the New Batman movie. There's a whole thing
about like the Gotham Urban Renewal Fund, and it's like
not no spoilers, really, it's just like a it's a
central kind of mover in the plot, this fund and
(45:03):
and and the corruption within it. Yeah, because it has
very little oversight in this story, so it can function
as a petty cash or slush money. Yeah, you have
to wonder what the financial motivations are all the time
in these sorts of things. Is that the Paul Dano one, Yeah, cool,
they're making a Face's awesome. Oh, I didn't face. Yeah,
(45:26):
is that the Paul Dano It's great. I've seen it.
It's awesome. No, I haven't seen it. It's it's on
HBO Max. It's super good. I like it about homes
for Nolan Ones. See you all later. I'm gonna go.
You should. It's about three and a half hours. So
the we we've got to consider the perspective of the
(45:48):
parents here. You know, you live in a residential neighborhood.
There's a gas station, the community seems to be growing.
Do you want to send your kids to the school
that's built on Do want to send them to the
O E O State Comprehensive Model College, which is, by
all reports a pretty good school for the area. I
(46:08):
just don't know what else is in the ground. Um,
and now these questions remain, you know what happened here?
One thing that really bothers me on a personal level
is uh, not so much that their discrepancies about how
many survivors or bodies were found, but more so that
it seems that a lot of leads in this case
(46:29):
were dropped before they were fully investigated. Like passports, passports
are usually pretty well documented, right, and they're usually linked
to other identifying documents, Where the passports? Where did those go?
What happened to maybe DNA testing? Was it a matter
of funding? What happened to reports of the UH wealthy
(46:53):
people apparently visiting the site? Were they there in the
early days of this as an urban renewal project than
just left where the funds drained and used for, you know,
to enrich someone else's bank account. There are a lot
of unanswered questions here, and one of those unanswered questions
is the same question that the taxi driver started out
(47:15):
with in the very beginning. What happened to our friend
who sent the text? To this day, no one knows
where Kasim is and no one knows what happened to him,
And for many in this area, these questions remain the
stuff they don't want you to know. This is a
grizzly one. Again, this should not in any way be
(47:36):
taken to be UH indicative of the state of Nigeria
as a whole. It is a huge country, it's a
populous country. But these um, these kind of stories show
you how quickly stuff can be forgotten even when it
shouldn't be. I mean, I don't know, do you guys
think this will ever be solved. Do you think anybody
will come forward? And no, that's that's given another man.
(48:03):
This has been so long When you think about that, um, well,
this is the kind of to be speaking of. The
stuff that I want you to know is the kind
of stuff that they will kill you for over you know,
you say the wrong name, you uh, you know, seen
as a snitch or whatever or rat. I mean, this
is whatever. The involvement of the authorities is obviously a
(48:24):
criminal organization that is brutal and bloodthirsty and willing to
go to any means necessary to protect themselves. I think silence.
You know, well, I haven't heard any any stories about
witnesses being killed. I mean, you know, honestly, I haven't.
I haven't seen any reporting on people who are disappearing
(48:45):
after this, like that's linked in some way to the story.
I don't know. That's all I'm saying. That's all I
mean is that you mean the people that were discovered alive,
you think they might have been potential targets if what
I'm saying was true, Well, I think anyone reporting on
it or digging into the story too deeply would be targets.
And what you're saying is true. That's my opinions. I
(49:05):
read am. I read some reports before the school was built,
which happened pretty quickly after the investigation, almost as if
somebody wanted someone to stop asking questions. Uh you. I
read some very interesting accounts from journalists in the area
who said that they were they were not just getting
(49:28):
stone walled, they were getting like physically threatened for asking questions.
So the danger is there. But these sorts of stories
do occur, and they do again accountot emphasize this enough.
They do fall out of the news cycle, and they
often don't seem to be investigated to the level of
(49:50):
scrutiny that they deserve. So we want to hear from you.
What do you think will will this crime ever be solved?
What do you think was happening? Do you think something
like this is still happening today? Let us know, uh,
and let us know if there are other similar tales
from your neck of the global woods. We look forward
to hearing from you. Thanks for tuning in. We try
(50:11):
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(50:33):
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so check that out. Keep it in your thoughts, everybody.
Reminder that our book Stuff they Don't want you to know,
(50:53):
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(51:13):
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(51:33):
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(51:56):
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(52:17):
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
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learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission controlled decades. Most importantly, you are you, You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know, folks. Today's episode takes us across
the planet to a grizzly and continuing mystery. We're exploring
(00:47):
a story with at times terrifying and graphic depictions of
violence and depravity, as well as profoundly disturbing implications for
the present day. As such, this may not be suitable
for all listeners. This is the tale of Nigeria's so
called Forest of Horror. Here are the facts. First, let's
(01:10):
get our Western heads around Nigeria. It's it's no secret
that in the West, in the US and Europe, reporting
of any country in the African continent is often beset
by a lot of prejudice, by a lot of sensationalism,
and by a lot of UM, I don't know, like
(01:30):
you could call it the shadow of colonialism. So as
a result, I would argue many people in the West
don't understand how big a deal Nigeria actually is. It's
it's a huge deal. It's true. It's the most populous
country in the entire African continent, and historically it's been
home to several ancient kingdoms UM, way before Western Europeans
(01:56):
started colonizing the area UM in the eighteen hundreds. This
is a very old civilization with UM tradition and history
dating back centuries. While its roots date back deep into
historical record, modern Nigeria could be described or viewed as
a relatively young country. Uh. It became officially independent UH
(02:20):
as recently as October of nineteen sixty and today you'll
find that it's a multinational state that's made up of
more than two hundred and fifty separate ethnic groups UM
speaking collectively more than five hundred distinct languages. Ya. So
take that American melting pot, You've got a ways to go. UH.
This is also this is also home to some of
(02:44):
the world's largest populations of people practicing Islam and people
practicing Christianity. At the same time, most of the Muslim
population is going to be in the northern region and
the Christian population concentrated in the south. And like every country,
(03:04):
every large country, especially Nigeria, is to a degree a
study and contradiction. When when you hear these facts, folks,
please don't think that this is us casting aspersion. We're
well aware that the United States has a ton of
problems too, right, So no that every every country is
(03:24):
in a glass house after a certain threshold. It's just
I think these contradictions will be surprising to a lot
of people who are not familiar with Nigeria itself exactly. Uh.
One thing we always talk about when we when we
bring up the continent of Africa is the western resource
(03:47):
extraction interests that often pop up in stories that we discuss,
and Nigeria is one of the one of the places
in Africa that it's just full of natural resources all
kinds of stuff zinc, iron, coal, limestone, lead, uh and
one of the main resources oil, all kinds of oil
(04:10):
reserves underneath the earth there. And largely for that reason,
Nigeria is I believe been the twenty five largest economy
in the world and definitely the largest economy on the
African continent. Yeah, yeah, largest in terms of GDP gross
(04:31):
domestic product, and that's why it has That's that's why
it's referred to at times by geopoliticians. I guess you
would call them and the business interests of the world
as the Giant of Africa. It's not just oil and gas.
It's got tons of coal, lead, tin, zinc, limestone. And
(04:52):
you're absolutely right, Matt. It suffers from what is called
the resource curse, which is which is the seemingly contradictory
position a lot of developing countries find themselves in their
resources could be immensely profitable for the government of that
place and for its people, but instead these resources seem
(05:17):
to be extracted by foreign powers, whether private or other
state actors, and with those extraction agreements comes a great
deal of corruption. This is a part of why Nigeria is, again,
like many many countries, beset by problems. The Human Development
Index finds that Nigeria is right now as we recording,
(05:40):
one of the most corrupt nations on the planet. Remember,
corruption is just like one genre of crime. You know,
if you go into the Baskin Robbins of crime, corruption
is one of the flavors. How many flavors does basket
robins have one? Because thirty one alright, so so yes,
(06:02):
corruption is one of those thirty ish flavors. UH crime
is high, especially in certain areas of the country. And
if you if you go to your local UM webs
like if you go to your own countries website or
travel advisory thing we have the State Department here in
(06:22):
the US, then you will likely see warnings against visiting
certain areas. These include the Niger Delta parts of the
northern regions of Nigeria, and they're duty concerns about the
likelihood of street crime against tourists or against foreigners, robbery, assault,
active activities of terrorist groups like Boko Haram, which is
(06:46):
still around even though the news doesn't report on it anymore,
and kidnapping, which is a not infrequent crime and plays
a big part in today's story. It's a matter of fact.
In the Gulf of Guinea where the waters along the
Nigerian coast, there are still pirates to this day, modern
day pirates, so it does have dangers to it, and
(07:09):
then they often are some of the ones perpetrating the kidnappings,
but also targeting merchant vessels and things like that. I mean, yeah, exactly,
And in many cases, you know, you have to exercise
a degree of empathy and understand that a lot of
folks don't wake up and think when I grow up,
(07:29):
I can't wait to commit crimes. People are driven there
through systemic economic problems. So that's just an important piece
of context. Add whenever we have this conversation, still there
we go. It's a melting pot of ancient cultures, it's
an economic powerhouse. Nigeria is still carries the intergenerational effects
(07:50):
of colonization, the resource curse. It's currently out of a
hundred and ninety plus you and acknowledge countries, it gets sticky,
you know, as other countries get mad about it. Out
of all of those, out of almost two hundred countries,
Nigeria has ranked sev uh least peaceful out of all
(08:14):
the countries on the planet. And despite the way it's
portrayed so often in Western media, again, it's really important
for us who have not been to Nigeria to remember,
like every other place in the world, it's chock full
of regular people. They're just doing their best to navigate
day to day challenges, just like anyone else. You know
what I mean, just like anybody else. Regular people are thinking, ah, man,
(08:39):
I really got a pee or I need to eat lunch,
stuff like that. That's where today's story starts with regular people,
a group of people kind of co workers of a sort.
Uh are there these motorcycle taxi drivers and in place
called Ibadan, which is the capital city of Nigeria's oh
(08:59):
Eos state. If you if you look on a map
just for reference, uh oh Eo is like to the
southwest of of Nigeria. It's in that part of the area,
just to give you a mental map. And in one
of these one of these cyclists went missing. The drivers
(09:21):
felt local police weren't helping out, which was not an
infrequent uh not an uncommon opinion in that area. The
police are largely considered to be corrupt. So this guy's
colleagues took the search in their own hands, and they
were not prepared for what they would find. There's no
way they really could be. Here's where it gets crazy.
(09:45):
Calling this next part text from a ghost. They'll see
why in a second. So these taxi drivers, their friend
doesn't just go missing. This guy, a man known as
Kasim in the in the media, UH He is part
of a group called the Occata Riders. That's the group
(10:07):
of these taxi drivers, their friends, they hang out. Some
of them are relatives. They're all connected as the point,
and they start receiving these cryptic, very disturbed text messages
from Cuisine. He says he's been kidnapped, not just kidnapped,
but he's being held captive somewhere in the Soca forest.
(10:29):
Soca is like kind of think of a suburb or
it's a satellite community of Ibadan, which is the capital,
and Soca is off of the Lagos Ibadon Expressway, so
just the situated there. And if you're thinking about Ohio,
the state we were talking about, where it is in
the kind of the southwestern area of Nigeria itself. Ibadon,
(10:53):
the capital, is just south of Ohio, so connecting basically
ebdon An Yo. There's um a series of roads, one
of the main, very main highway, and that's what we're
talking about right here. And Kau seems friends know this
is not a prank, This is not some sort of
(11:14):
uh reality show situation. They know it because kidnapping for
any number of reasons is unfortunately not an infrequent occurrence
in Nigeria. And importantly, kidnappers don't just target you know,
hapless tourists. Anybody can become a victim. The text that
(11:34):
Consim sends to his relatives and to his colleagues described
the area to the best of his ability, but it's
very you know, it's difficult to do so. And he
says that he is currently with eight other people, eight
other strangers in an underground dungeon somewhere in the forest.
And this isn't much. But his colleagues as relatives, they
(11:58):
take it seriously. They first go to the police, and
the police don't do anything. It's it's at least perceived
that way. The group, like the friends of this person Causim,
didn't see any police activity. They weren't a learner of
any police activity. You know, there was nothing. If there
was some kind of investigation, it wasn't happening in the
open right exactly, and they weren't being clued in. They
(12:21):
felt stone walled. That ignored important to New We'll talk
about reporting too in this episode. At this point, the
story kind of diverges into a couple of different narratives.
The New Telegraph, for instance, says that leading up to
this three cyclists in total had gone missing, but other
news sources focus only on this cuisine guy, and it
(12:44):
may be because it was Kasim's friends who were able
to make some headway despite the plausibility of a kidnapping.
Because the local police seemed dismissive, incorrupt, the drivers banded together.
They took the search into their own hands. They say,
we're gonna find our friend, and they did find something.
(13:04):
We'll tell you what they found after a word from
our sponsor. All right, so you are a member of
the Okada writers, right, or you are a member of
Kasim's extended family, and you're going off very little information,
(13:26):
so you start searching all of the areas that might
match up to what this guy is talking about in
his text. Eventually, you and this group stumble across a
building that no one has seen before. None of you
are familiar with it. It's it's kind of newish, but
it's in poor repair, and there's an eerie silence hanging
(13:48):
over the air. You can maybe maybe here some mechanics
working in the distance. They'll appear in the story later,
but at first it just looks like a disused warehouse.
It does before we really give those details. Been, I
just want to reiterate to everybody, how, in my mind
unlikely it is that this small group, relatively small group
(14:12):
of people out searching for their friend was able to
discover this compound because the number of square kilometers or
miles that they had to cover between those two places. Uh,
it's just it's mind it's mind boggling to me, the
number of places that they had to have searched or
(14:32):
you know, that they could have stumbled upon that wasn't
this place, but they did find it. I don't know.
To me, that's that's pretty miraculous and incredib and incredible.
But what they you know, as you said, Been, what
they did find is is I don't even want to
talk about. Hey, no, you want to tell people what
they I'm a I'm a glutton for punishment. Uh, let
me take it. Yeah, it's it's it's rough. Um, so
(14:55):
prepare yourself. It's no joke. Um. They, like you said,
they stummed upon this compound. It was a massive warehouse
eat type space and very poor repair, and upon entering
it they found something utterly shocking and disturbing. Around twenty
decomposing bodies piled up throughout the compound, various dismembered body parts,
(15:19):
college identification cards. That's the part that really creeps me out.
I mean it all creeps me out. Which is that
part discarded you know, uh, clothing you know, um, just
just scattered all throughout the interior of the building, passports,
baby shoes. It was an absolute slaughter house. I mean truly,
(15:41):
you know, an abattoir. There were though I wouldn't call
this quality of life, but people were alive in there
had been chained like animals, um, malnourished, gaunt and weathered
and emaciated. One woman that was found claimed to have
given birth recently and that her child was then taken
(16:04):
by whomever was acting as their jailers. Another victim died
very quickly after being discovered. Um. The details are a
little bit hazy. UM. There's some differing reports on just
how many people were found alive or roaming the compound
(16:24):
and some sort of fugue state. UM, but it's estimated
that eight to ten people were found in chains, and
maybe as many as twenty or more overall at the site. Yeah,
some allegedly in an underground tunnel, some chained out in
(16:45):
the open and then some wandering just just wandering the premise,
And there were a lot of bodies that were found
in the bushes. Some have been put in other buildings
on the compound. The passports and the idea stand out
to me as well. I was able to find the
names that were on the I d s. But we're
(17:08):
not going to put him in the show of because
this should be an ongoing investigation should be We'll get
to that in a second. So let's also mentioned the
the large number of human remains that were found. There
were just bones. They were scattered all over the place,
(17:30):
not just in specific buildings, but just in the wooded
areas on the ground. We're talking full human skulls and
other bones just line around right, which means that these
people had died at different times, so this could be
called a mass grave, but these people didn't die all
at the same time, and the people who were still
(17:54):
alive clearly bore signs of trauma and injury. There are
also things like hands discovered that weren't that experts weren't
able to link to another body or set of bones
on the site. So for the people who make this
(18:15):
initial discovery, this is a horror movie, A hellish scene
come to life. They freed the victims that they found,
they made their escape, they went to the authorities. They
did not find their friend who had been texting them,
and they did not see any people who appeared to
be the perpetrators of these crimes, at least at this time.
(18:37):
Word spreads like wildfire throughout the community. People in the
capital and beyond the Odio capital and beyond, families who
have their own missing relatives from other states, from other
parts of the country. They all start flocking to the area.
It becomes too big for law enforcement to ignore. This
sparks a nationwide controversy, uh and the the authorities start
(19:02):
making public statements. Let's go to Ohio State Police spokesperson
A Labisi Ilio Bountifour, and also we are not native
speakers of languages of Nigeria. Illo Bountifour says, police are
launching a murder investigation and when they arrived, they even
arrest some suspects at the scene. This is fascinating. They've
(19:28):
arrested six suspects. Five of these were security guards that
were apparently armed with guns as well as bows and arrows.
But these six individuals are not publicly named, and very
quickly they disappear from the news. Remember what we say
about speculation and transparency. In the absence of transparency, speculation thrives.
(19:52):
This warehouse is also interesting to authorities because it appears
to be a recent construction. The Soca area is being
developed at this time, and it looks like, uh, some
building companies, This is the initial thought. It looks like
some building companies or some kind of company created this
compound and then abandoned it. May be abandoned it when
(20:17):
they were done with their nearby work. Maybe it was
just like to store equipment. Um, maybe they abandoned it
when some other project was complete. Unclear, unclear to this day. Actually,
and then the locals start saying something really interesting. They say,
this is not a new problem at all. In fact,
(20:39):
they say, we have been going to local law enforcement
for years reporting mysterious disappearances in the area, and in
every case we are dismissed, We're brushed off. And then,
remember we talked about the sound maybe of some nearby mechanics.
There are mechanics who operate near the site, and they
(21:00):
say they had no knowledge of any crimes taking place
until these motorcycle taxi guys discover the compound, but they
say it is weird that they see a lot of
posh vehicles heading to and from this site, often under
the cover of night. This is not a place where,
(21:22):
by the way, you would ordinarily see like a range
Rover or Mercedes just cruising through. No, not at all.
I just have to bring this up, guys. It's so
odd to me that people working anywhere near this compound
wouldn't have known something was amiss. And it's only because
of the reporting I've seen of the smell of these
(21:45):
areas side and how far that smell permeated or are
spread rather throughout the area. There were multiple locations within
the compound and outside the compound where decaying human remains
existed and just sat and uh. The there was one
I think it was one specific reporter from Sahara Reporters
(22:06):
at least that was the outlet that I had seen
it on a couple of YouTube reports done where even
well after the fact, after this place had been discovered,
after it had been even cleaned up a little bit,
there was this smell eat as you approach um. So
it's just it's odd to me that people wouldn't notice
that it's the smell of death. Is that is the issue?
(22:28):
Death has its own smell. Unfortunately, it's easily and fingers
and it spreads, and it's not something a mistake for
anything else. Right, It's not not to sound too woo
woo or hippie, but I believe it smells very different
from just decaying meat. Uh. And this this calls into
question a couple of other things. Uh. One of the
(22:50):
survivors talks about hearing screams when she is abducted, and
she said she didn't know if that was the sound
of people being harmed or if it was the sound
of someone giving birth. So we have to wonder how
close these mechanics were and how sound carries through the forest.
This is not looking good. In short, locals begin to
(23:14):
fear that what the community has discovered is something more
than a lunatic going ed gain and just murdering people.
Due to their own mental state. They believe that someone
has stumbled across a business that some entity or some
powerful group was mutilating, torturing, murdering these people for a
(23:39):
specific purpose, a grizzly magical purpose. And it may sound
weird if you are unfamiliar with the history of the
area to all of a sudden mention magic or magical practices.
But this belief, as surprising as it may sound to outsiders,
(23:59):
does not come from thin air. There is a long
running system of belief amid certain groups in Nigeria, that
and and throughout other parts of the world. By the
way that human body parts can be used in magical
rituals to grant financial uh financial or political success, to
(24:23):
protect you from other evil spells or physical harm, methods
for obtaining the favor of a lover or harming an enemy.
The favor of a lover one is a little bit different.
That's more of a body bodily fluid thing. But but
this is real and if you want to learn more
about similar practices, then you can check out our earlier
(24:45):
work on the dangers posed to people with Albanism in
certain parts of of the African continent. Is that because
it's seen as some kind of curse or some kind
of mystical something, there's a lot of folklore and superstition
surrounding people who have the condition of Albanism, and it
(25:09):
really affects the social integration of people with Albanism in
their local communities. Also, it's a depending on where you
live on the continent, it's already really rough just from
a physical just from a physical standpoint because of the
son exposure. So there's yeah, there's a lot, there's a
(25:31):
lot of straying on people in those in those communities,
especially children. If you have a child who has Albanism,
in some communities, that's seen as a bad omen. They're
treated as unwanted. So there's infant aside occurs as well.
Let's quickly go back a little bit just to this
concept of what what locals began to imagine or think
(25:53):
what was occurring there? Right, And we've got we've got,
uh some of the beliefs tied to perhaps magical or
other some some type of rituals, uh that people could
have been used for, body parts could have been used for.
There's also very you know, humanity has a very real
relationship with human sacrifice. I just looked to your nearest
(26:15):
Bible to see great examples of all the human sacrifice
that uh, we've been putting forward and repeating for millennia.
Um doesn't happen everywhere, it doesn't happen often anymore, but
it still does happen. And also just bringing up, guys,
we just did that episode of Body Brokers. This is
already feeling to me like something we've discussed recently, Like
(26:40):
this feels like a business. What a sloppy business though.
I mean, they're certainly not covering their tracks very well, well,
we'll see, because do they. I mean, the question is
what what means covering one's tracks? Well, you know how
and how much covering is even required given certain assistances.
(27:04):
Let's just say, right, yeah, the question of complicity gets
curious or and curious or yeah, and let's let's stop
for a moment to talk as well about reporting problems
in this case. So in the West, reporting took a
decidedly maccab somewhat sensationalistic bent, at least in some stories
(27:28):
that I got into. Reporters were leaning into old stereotypes
instead of looking objectively at things like chain of chain
of evidence, things like operations of law enforcement and you know,
just regular police procedure the way that you would normally
look at crimes of this magnitude. And this confusion is
(27:50):
further complicated by conflicting statements of police and the local government.
And this is also further are confounded by the fact,
the inarguable fact that there are multiple reports of what
appear to be ritual killings in southern Nigeria in the
years leading up to this discovery. We don't have to
(28:14):
get into all of them, but if you want to,
if you want to get um a sense of this,
you can go to ref world dot org and just
search for an article called Nigeria Prevalence of Ritual Murder
and human Sacrifice Police and State Response to two thousand
nine to two thousand twelve. This is a long read,
(28:37):
so yeah, and this is a you can there's a
lot of that from the Sahara reporters. Here are the
same ones that we've been citing for this um stuff
that was written back in it was around, but you
can find it. Yeah, I would recommend Sahara reporters. You'll
want to dig honestly into the bibliography of the wiki
(28:57):
because that's where you can find some arc hived things
from New Telegraph Online, Vanguard and gr You can also
find a couple of Reddit threads, but I would stick
with the local regional reporting out of Nigeria at the time.
Maybe some of the British stuff as well. Just as
long as you have that caveat about the western eye.
(29:20):
That Vanguard outlet you mentioned Ben that that one I
know had multiple pretty good right ups on the situation
there as it was ongoing. Yeah, it covers the it
covers the riot, It covers that well spoilers, we're almost
their folks. Yes, it does. So let's go back to
a little bounded for the police spokesperson. One of the
(29:43):
first public statements the spokesperson said makes is it is
not a common occurrence in Ibadan or in the state.
The police will investigate this crime in all its ramifications.
They deploy a forensic team to the forest. Authorities attempt
to search a nearby cave upon you know, rumors that
(30:06):
the criminals maybe hold up in there, as if they
hadn't somehow noticed the crowd and ran away. The survivors,
for their part, they attempt. They attempt to assist as
best as they can, but they are in terrible physical
and mental condition. They have survived hellish things. One died
(30:26):
shortly after discovery um Most were struggling to cut through
their trauma and remember any specifics. Some remained in a catatonic,
non responsive, traumatized state. There is one victim that we're
okay with saying we're okay we're sharing the name of
on air because this victim was in recovery. Gave his
(30:51):
full name and related his experience on the record, so
he has given consent this sense his name not few
shoot too. And he said he was kidnapped four months
ago from the capital of Ohio and he was selling
(31:12):
herbs on the street, herbal remedies. He had been sitting
down because he had been on his feet all day,
and he was forced in a car by two men
and then he said that's all he could remember. He
blacked out, and when he woke up, he was one
of those people in the forest in a room chained
to a wall for four months. Can you imagine the
(31:33):
panic and just the the horror, not to mention if
he was like surrounded by decaying bodies and other prisoners.
I mean, it's unclear where they're like other compartments where
folks were being kept, or was it all kind of
out in this open area there or other compartments. It
seems yeah, yeah, And just it's a if you imagine
it's a imagine a brick building that doesn't really have doors,
(31:57):
it's got openings. The windows are in place, it's just
the their openings. But it is made out of brick
and a couple of other materials. It looks unfinished. And
there are outbuildings as well. And if you've been to
if you if you've traveled to some developing countries, then
you've seen structures like this before. You know, often in
(32:18):
Central or South America there'll be cinder block structures where
there is a door opening, maybe there's a sheet hanging right,
or maybe their sheets hanging in the apertures for windows,
but there's not like glass or wood and hinges and
all that. And and part of the reason for that
is maybe the project loss funding or maybe it's unfinished.
(32:41):
But also depending on the climate, you may not need
to insulate against cold weather because it just might not
get that cold. So there are a number of reasons
this could happen. Where are mosquitoes will get you. You
gotta get netted up, getting that at up, unless that
(33:02):
invented a cure for mosquitoes, unless he gets to deploy that.
But that's a that's a different that's a different story altogether. Uh,
we do know that bugs were a problem. They were
on the survivors. I can only imagine with no intervention,
with nothing protecting you or any you know, even just
like spray of some kind. I mean, you could absolutely
(33:23):
get very sick from those bites. Um. It's interesting too,
we're talking about kind of this, like you know, urban
decay and projects that you know, maybe lost funding. Uh,
just you know, in the landscape of this part of
the world. UM, I guess it would make for a
pretty good ruse to have officials stopping you and saying
that they're part of a quote urban renewal initiative and
(33:45):
because you please come with me, you know, the guys
of like we're gonna help you out. We're gonna like
put you in a new living situation or something right,
or force you to go. Yeah, this is okay, So
let's talk a little bit about this. This is of
the uh statements by multiple victims. They said that their
kidnappers had said they were officials of a urban renewal initiative,
(34:10):
and because they were officials, and because they were praying
on people who didn't have the money for a bribe,
these folks felt that they didn't have a choice, right,
and an urban renewal initiative it has a it has
a couple of unfortunately similar themes with things that have
(34:32):
happened in the United States not too very long ago. Uh.
And I just want to plant that seed and then
we'll we'll see what kind of uncleaned trees, perhaps from
the conversation later. Crowds, Yeah, crowds. Crowds of people from
Oyo and other parts of the country gather at this site,
(34:54):
and those who arrive before the police have cordoned off
the area are a astounded and no small part just
disturbed by what they find. You have to remember that
there's a time interval here. The local communities are connected
via mobile phone via word of mouth, so they are
(35:16):
much more effective at getting the word out before the
authorities take official or public action. So the people beat
the police to the scene, is what we're saying. And
when they're there. And also remember a lot of these
people potentially have a missing person from their family or
friend group that they're searching for, right and when they
(35:37):
hear about the just sheer amount of bodies uh, and
they hear about living victims being found, it makes it
makes them reasonably think this might be an opportunity for
closure or even the rediscovery of a loved one. So
some of the people who arrived there, they say they
see the chains, they see what they recognize as magical
(35:58):
charms or the making of those charms, and they see
a slab, and the slab appeared to have blood on it.
It looked like this was where victims were taken and mutilated, assaulted,
or killed. The police arrived, tensions are high. They've corned
off the area. People are demanding to be let in
(36:19):
because they want to search for their own loved ones.
And just a few days after the discovery, a riot
occurs between law enforcement and concerned citizens. Law enforcement fires
live rounds into the crowd. At least one woman is
hit by a stray bullet and later dies as a result.
(36:40):
Local herdsman Falani herdsman are operating in the area and
because of one of the one of the knives found
at the scene of that of the warehouse, other people
who are not herdsman start thinking, hey, these guys are responsible,
and retaliation they start killing their cows. They say, look,
(37:03):
they say, the same thing, Matt, that you had mentioned rightly,
So I thought of it too, about the mechanics. They say, look,
you are so familiar with this area. You live in
step with this land. You cannot claim that you didn't
know what was going on there. So everybody is looking
for a perpetrator, right, and this is where the governor
(37:29):
of Ohio steps in. And this is where it begins
to get even more like true crime or a noir story,
somewhat of a mix between HP Lovecraft and True Detective.
You'll see what we mean after a word from our sponsor.
(37:51):
So the local governor has to step in. This is
blowing up. He visits the scene to call him the situation,
and you can go to a couple of different outlets
and read excerpts of his speech. Long story short. He
vows that they're going to find the perpetrators. They're going
to excavate the area, and they're going to find any
(38:15):
other remains. They are also going to revoke made a
big deal about this, revoke the right to land ownership
for whomever might own the land. And he's he allieds
past that point and then he taking ownership of it
right right and uh. He also says the government, like
(38:37):
the locals, had no knowledge of this atrocity. This reassures
some members of the community, but not everyone is convinced.
There's a guy named Iodel Addie gun and Addie gun
once upon a time was a secretary of the Ohio government.
And he says the current governor is lie and that
(39:01):
his uh, his visit to the site, his claims of
innocence were little more than a than a ruse a performance.
Addie Gunn says that a cover up is afoot. He
says that the current governor's administration didn't just know about
(39:22):
this compound, but that they created it as part of
a failed, abandoned urban renewal project. Yes, it turns out
that the urban renewal initiative was real, but its existence
only it leads to more questions. I think maybe for perspective,
(39:43):
we can talk a little bit about similar things that
have happened, loosely, similar things that have happened in states
in the US. There have been cases where one occurred
in Atlanta during the Olympics, where people, in an attempt
to beautify their city for visitors, said let's get the
(40:03):
bad element, the rough element out, and so they would
give unhoused or homeless people one way bus tickets go
wherever you want, you just can't come back. And this
happened in Hawaii. Hawaii actually built an island where they
were telling unhoused people, yeah, you can totally go this island.
Will make sure you have food and everything. You just
can't come back to Hawaii. They'll also give you a
(40:27):
plane ticket in Hawaii. I think to the one way
because I'm getting these weird I don't know, I'm getting
images of Hamsterdam from the wire where you can look
that up if you don't know what that is. It
feels like something that had good intentions maybe at the beginning,
this urban renewal project we're talking about here, and then
it turned into something just completely different. Sometimes with all
(40:48):
the best intentions, things can spiral out of control and
kind of take on a life of their own. You know,
look at Police Academy. Yeah started police Academy too, right.
Uh this uh, this, this is true, and this maybe
indeed be one of the possibilities. So Iria Gunn says
that this area, the site of this horror, was acquired
(41:14):
by the current administration two thousand eleven, and it was
meant to be a rehabilitation center for the mentally unwell
and the destitute who are getting taken off the streets.
But he says the administration didn't provide funding or oversight
to maintain it, and those allegations, if they're true, are
(41:36):
incredibly disturbing. He goes into further detail about this, and
you can find this this he is actually saying this.
He says between two thousand and eleven and there was
a beautification plan, there was a committee headed by someone
named Tomy okay Uh, Special Advisor on Environment and Habitat,
and this committee gathered the mentally ill and the extremely
(41:59):
poor and placed them in this compound to get them
off the streets, and then just forgot about them. So,
from atta Gun's perspective, this opened He seems to believe
this opened the door for criminal activity, for ritualistic trade
and human body parts. He says the state government went
to sleep, and people of dubious character probably found a
(42:23):
ready market by the merchandise they wanted. So he's not
saying that the government itself actively created this Charnel house,
but he's saying because of the government's negligence and arguably incompetence,
other forces were able to come into play and to
(42:46):
leverage this for their own ability. Locals would tend to
agree they take it Further, though, many of the locals
were convinced the government knew more than it was letting on.
Some like out of Gun do stop short of saying
the government actually knowingly participated in ritualistic slaughter. But others
think it goes deeper. And that's one of the big
conspiracy theories. It's one that continues in a way even today,
(43:10):
almost a decade later. Could the powerful upper crust of
Ohio and societies and other areas have actively operated a
body parts factory using these remains for magical purposes. It's
a disturbing question, and it may sound sensationalistic, but this,
again is something that locals in the area believe on
(43:32):
what they perceived to be pretty solid evidence. You know.
That's why we have to walk through some of the
context here and you can learn more about this story
from multiple angles. It's freely available. But eventually the Western
media turned away from these developments. Other things started happening
in other parts of the world. The story went cold,
(43:54):
as we record and may have two The murderers remain
officially uncas the kidnappers remain officially uncaught. The crimes remain
unsolved to this day, and uh it seems that the
authorities would like the community to move on, because if
you visit Soca today, you're not gonna see the remains
(44:16):
of this warehouse. Yeah. I don't know. Something smells bad
from here in Atlanta, where it feels like there was
definitely something going on that they at least the police.
At least the police, we're told not to do certain things.
I I just get that feeling. That's my opinion. But
it feels that way something went really really wrong with
(44:40):
the urban Renewal project and they just went that's not
something you need to worry about. Isn't that a plot
point in the New Batman movie. There's a whole thing
about like the Gotham Urban Renewal Fund, and it's like
not no spoilers, really, it's just like a it's a
central kind of mover in the plot, this fund and
(45:03):
and and the corruption within it. Yeah, because it has
very little oversight in this story, so it can function
as a petty cash or slush money. Yeah, you have
to wonder what the financial motivations are all the time
in these sorts of things. Is that the Paul Dano one, Yeah, cool,
they're making a Face's awesome. Oh, I didn't face. Yeah,
(45:26):
is that the Paul Dano It's great. I've seen it.
It's awesome. No, I haven't seen it. It's it's on
HBO Max. It's super good. I like it about homes
for Nolan Ones. See you all later. I'm gonna go.
You should. It's about three and a half hours. So
the we we've got to consider the perspective of the
(45:48):
parents here. You know, you live in a residential neighborhood.
There's a gas station, the community seems to be growing.
Do you want to send your kids to the school
that's built on Do want to send them to the
O E O State Comprehensive Model College, which is, by
all reports a pretty good school for the area. I
(46:08):
just don't know what else is in the ground. Um,
and now these questions remain, you know what happened here?
One thing that really bothers me on a personal level
is uh, not so much that their discrepancies about how
many survivors or bodies were found, but more so that
it seems that a lot of leads in this case
(46:29):
were dropped before they were fully investigated. Like passports, passports
are usually pretty well documented, right, and they're usually linked
to other identifying documents, Where the passports? Where did those go?
What happened to maybe DNA testing? Was it a matter
of funding? What happened to reports of the UH wealthy
(46:53):
people apparently visiting the site? Were they there in the
early days of this as an urban renewal project than
just left where the funds drained and used for, you know,
to enrich someone else's bank account. There are a lot
of unanswered questions here, and one of those unanswered questions
is the same question that the taxi driver started out
(47:15):
with in the very beginning. What happened to our friend
who sent the text? To this day, no one knows
where Kasim is and no one knows what happened to him,
And for many in this area, these questions remain the
stuff they don't want you to know. This is a
grizzly one. Again, this should not in any way be
(47:36):
taken to be UH indicative of the state of Nigeria
as a whole. It is a huge country, it's a
populous country. But these um, these kind of stories show
you how quickly stuff can be forgotten even when it
shouldn't be. I mean, I don't know, do you guys
think this will ever be solved. Do you think anybody
will come forward? And no, that's that's given another man.
(48:03):
This has been so long When you think about that, um, well,
this is the kind of to be speaking of. The
stuff that I want you to know is the kind
of stuff that they will kill you for over you know,
you say the wrong name, you uh, you know, seen
as a snitch or whatever or rat. I mean, this
is whatever. The involvement of the authorities is obviously a
(48:24):
criminal organization that is brutal and bloodthirsty and willing to
go to any means necessary to protect themselves. I think silence.
You know, well, I haven't heard any any stories about
witnesses being killed. I mean, you know, honestly, I haven't.
I haven't seen any reporting on people who are disappearing
(48:45):
after this, like that's linked in some way to the story.
I don't know. That's all I'm saying. That's all I
mean is that you mean the people that were discovered alive,
you think they might have been potential targets if what
I'm saying was true, Well, I think anyone reporting on
it or digging into the story too deeply would be targets.
And what you're saying is true. That's my opinions. I
(49:05):
read am. I read some reports before the school was built,
which happened pretty quickly after the investigation, almost as if
somebody wanted someone to stop asking questions. Uh you. I
read some very interesting accounts from journalists in the area
who said that they were they were not just getting
(49:28):
stone walled, they were getting like physically threatened for asking questions.
So the danger is there. But these sorts of stories
do occur, and they do again accountot emphasize this enough.
They do fall out of the news cycle, and they
often don't seem to be investigated to the level of
(49:50):
scrutiny that they deserve. So we want to hear from you.
What do you think will will this crime ever be solved?
What do you think was happening? Do you think something
like this is still happening today? Let us know, uh,
and let us know if there are other similar tales
from your neck of the global woods. We look forward
to hearing from you. Thanks for tuning in. We try
(50:11):
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(50:33):
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so check that out. Keep it in your thoughts, everybody.
Reminder that our book Stuff they Don't want you to know,
(50:53):
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(51:56):
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Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.