Mob action: How alleged 'witch' escaped lynching in Lagos

Dorcas Olufunke Fawale, a 35 year-old mother of one is ostensibly happy today and thanking her stars to be counted among the living. Her gratitude is also being shared by her mother, Mrs. Abosede Fawale and neighbours who live at No. 2 Oremeji Street, Isolo, Lagos.
Few weeks ago it would have been a different story as she came close to being lynched by an angry mob in a suburb of Iyana-Ejigbo after being mistaken for a witch. It echoed a similar scenario thousands of miles away in Port Harcourt, where four undergraduates of the University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT) were unlawfully killed by a dare-devil mob at Aluu community in Rivers State.

From the early hours of the eventful day, a bizarre tale began to spread like wild-fire that an evil bird fell and landed in the neighbourhood and transformed into a human being. And before long a large crowd had thronged the quiet neighbourhood and it had become a Mecca for thousands of onlookers.
On the spot, it was a beehive of activities as curious Lagosians struggled to get the best of the moment. When SE reporter visited the location, the picture and videos of the alleged victim was a hot commodity and was already selling for N200.
How Dorcas became identified as the bird-turned-human remains a subject of mystery as several neighbours were willing to confirm the tale. According to a resident simply identified as Mama Wale, the prevailing theory was that a big bird was first sighted very early in the morning by a female food vendor and before she could say Jack Robinson it turned out to be a strange and untidy woman (later identified as Dorcas Fawale).
Panicked by the strange scenario, the food vendor raised an alarm that attracted neighbours and vigilante groups who immediately began to harangue and torture the alleged witch.
One resident told Sunday Express, “The witch confessed before every one of us that she was on her way back from an evil operation which they carried out on a victim in Ibadan. However, luck ran out of them because the victim was at a vigil and they couldn’t resist the force of a higher power that they encountered. She also confessed that she lives at No. 2 Oremeji Street, Isolo. ”
By midday, Policemen attached to the Ejigbo Division of the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) intervened and took the alleged witch into their custody. But the crowd had become restive as they grew in their numbers. By the time Dorcas was taken into custody, the mob was already baying for blood. At the Police Station, SE reporter observed as onlookers crowded round every available space to grab a picture of the now famous‘witch’ of Ejigbo.
Apparently, to douse tension and disperse the impatient crowd, the case was immediately transferred for further investigation to Zone D Police Station, Mushin.
On the next day when Sunday Express traced the Isolo home of Dorcas Olufunke Fawale, the atmosphere was calm and it was business as usual. Her mother, Mrs. Abosede Fawale, a native of Modakeke, Ife, Osun State, who is a cleaner at a primary school in the neighbourhood explained that she was the first child out of her five children.
Looking sober and lukewarm, Dorcas, the woman in the eye of the storm disclosed that she cannot explain how she found herself in Ejigbo. Asked why she confessed to being a witch, she revealed that she did that not only when the beating became too unbearable but also to pacify the mob.
To buttress her daughter’s point, Mrs, Fawale refuted tale that Dorcas was a witch.
“Dorcas is 35 year old and has a five year old son,” she narrates. “She has a strange ailment that seizes her like epilepsy and it started when she was in JSS1. She attended AnsarUdeen and has seizures as often as two to three times in a day which made her to be unable to neither continue her education nor learn a trade. So what she does to keep body and soul together is to help people wash clothes, clean their shops and they pay her.”
“Whenever this thing comes, she leaves home and will not return for days on a stretch and it was on one of such days that she found herself in Ejigbo where people mistook her for a witch. Please help me tell the world that my daughter is not a witch,” she cried.