The suspect
MOTHER OF the 11-year-old girl who survived money ritual sacrifice, Evelyn Kemeh, has stated that her child remains ‘unchanged’ despite her brush with a near-death experience that should scare her for life.
According to the woman, apart from a tot calling her daughter a scapegoat due to the incident last Sunday at church, the tweenager is well in her disposition, intimating, “Nothing has changed about my daughter.”
Speaking on GTV’s Breakfast show on Monday, Madam Kemeh said she and her daughter had received encouragement from people not to worry about the incident.
Businessman, Evans Oppong, 42, was arrested last Friday for allegedly attempting to use his daughter for money rituals, having contacted a native priest/herbalist at Oyibi Kom in Accra to assist him to sacrifice the 11-year-old.
Evelyn Kemeh continued that she had cordial relationship with Evans Oppong, her daughter’s father prior to the incident, adding that he used to take their daughter to and from school anytime he was in Ghana, and paid her school fees.
She narrated that because Evans was always going for the girl, all the teachers knew him, and that somewhere in September last year, he threw a party at her school for her birthday celebration.
Madam Kemeh recounted the character of Evans and described him as a calm person, who is always reserved.
“We usually call each other and the last time we spoke, he explained to me that he had been involved in an accident,” she said, and added, “Last Tuesday he called to tell me that his friend abroad wanted to sew a dress and buy some shoes for my daughter, and so he would come for the child at 12:00pm on Thursday from school, and confirmed if she is Yaa.”
After he hung up the phone, Madam Kemeh said she was left confused, thinking about what he told her, and subsequently passed on the information to their daughter.
According to her, she asked her daughter what it meant if someone asks about the day of birth of another, to which the tween responded that it could be that the one wanted to use the person concerned for rituals.
She said she and the daughter laughed about it, but later consulted an elderly person on the discussion she had with the suspect, who advised her not to allow the victim to go to school that fateful Thursday.
The girl’s mother said Evans failed to turn up as indicated earlier, while her daughter insisted that she could not go with the father on Friday because of school assignments.
She narrated that the father insisted to take her to the friend, promising it would be a short trip.
“I told my child not to accept anything offered to her by her father, nor should she take off her dress when asked to, and instructed her not to sleep in the car either.
“After they left, I was expecting her father to call but he didn’t. I later received a call around 11:40am asking me the whereabouts of my daughter. I realised the person was a police officer. The officer said my daughter was at a police station and I followed him to the place.”
It was there that I was informed the father had attempted to use her for money rituals,” she recounted.
By Ernest Kofi Adu