Umaru Garba is a 53-year old native doctor in Batagarawa Local Government Area of Kastina State. All his life he has been a herbalist and in the last ten years, he has been providing spiritual support and fortifications for various groups of kidnappers and armed robbers in the middle belt and some part of Northern Nigeria.
He brags on the efficacy of his charms and boasts of its success over the years. However, luck ran out for him when one of the gangs he provides support for was arrested by the IGP Intelligence Response Team. He confessed to his participation and how he has been active in the underworld.
Read his confession below:
“My name is Umaru, from Batagarawa Local Government Area of Kastina State. I am 53, years old. I am the spiritual leader to so many kidnaps and armed robbery gang. I usually pray for them for protection and power for them to succeed in all of their operations and when they succeed, they come and show appreciation with whatever they have.
“I have been doing this for more than 10 years now and I also give them medicine, charms and other things to guide them as they go. I have made so much money from this and I have never been broke since I started working for this group of people. I know they are criminals and I know everything that they do but you see they pay me so well that I just have to continue to work for them.
“I have backed them up with prayers and charms which worked for them until when they kidnap the chief of Rubochi that the police came after them and arrested all of us. The police first arrested them and they led them to my place that I am the one that usually back them up with spiritual powers.
“Before they planned the kidnap of the traditional ruler of Rubochi, they came to me, as usual, to hint me about the operation and asked me to pray for them to have good luck and I did. They told me they will ask for N5million ransom but I told that the amount was too small and they increased it to N6million and at the end of the day they told me they collected N6million and they shared it among themselves and kept the sum of N50,000, for me. I was enjoying myself with the money before I was rounded up by the police.
“I have spent six years with this particular group of people but I have other criminal groups that I provide diabolical services for. I pray for a lot of armed robbers and kidnappers to have successful operations and for police not to arrest them and the prayers have been working until this December.”
