By Abdulrahman Kamara
Reports reaching this medium revealed that members of a secret society, ‘the Poro Society’ has mounted a man hunt for Osman Kanu, after it was disclosed that he narrowly escaped death at the hands of the members in their society shrine, where he was being forcefully initiated on 27th December 2019.
According to sources closed to the family, Osman Kanu was living in Freetown when news of the death of his father met him. As the only son of his father, he was expected, as tradition demands to grace the funeral, but he deliberately refused to attend for fear that he will be forced into society initiation, especially as his late father was a senior member of the secret society and had initiated many young people belonging to other members in the society, some of whom had mysteriously died in the society shrine, located in the middle of the forest.
According to sources, Pa Santigie Kanu, the late father of Osman Kanu, was the head of the Poro Society in Karafay village in the Port Loko District and passed away in 2018. It was further disclosed that on the one year anniversary of the death of his father, Osman Kanu was invited from Freetown to come and observe the one year funeral rites of his later father, since he was absent on the burial day.
Our source further disclosed that on his arrival in the village the heads of the Poro Society told Osman to take over his father position as the head of the society, which is called the ‘Soko Bana’, but he refused the offer on grounds that he is a devout Muslim and his religion forbids association with such secret societies, where the consumption of human blood is part of the initiation ceremony.
However, whilst sleeping in the night, members of the secret society abducted him and took him to the society shrine for initiation. After some days in the bush, whilst preparations were on the way for the completion of his initiation rites, Osman Kanu managed to escape from the shrine into the bush and disappeared.
Family sources say that they only knew about his disappearance when the members of the society stormed their house looking for him.
In an interview with the visibly shocked mother, Mabinty Koroma, she disclosed that Osman is her son and that the society demands that the biological son of the father, head of the society, should take over the leadership of the secret society. She furthered that as the mother, she is not in support of her son joining the Secret Society, but tradition demands that he must go through the process, as he is the only son in the family. “I am a woman and I don’t have the power to question the tradition of the society as a woman, and I don’t have any right to make decisions in the home”, she stressed.
She lamented that this incident has caused her son to disappear and his whereabouts are unknown to her and any member of the family. She expressed anxiety over the safety and health of her son.
As we go to press there are fresh moves to locate Osman by members of the secret society, who are intimating that if found, he will be made to pay with his life, as no one enters the secret shrine of the society and goes away without being initiated. They are, in all cases, hunted down and killed secretly.
