Residents of Atobiase, a farming community near New Edubiase in the Adansi South District of the Ashanti Region, were numb with shock on Monday morning following the discovery of strange circumstances that have led to a series of deaths in one family unit.

Twenty-eight persons, comprising 18 women and 10 men from the Aduana clan at Adansi-Atobiase, within a space of a few years, had been untimely dispatched to their graves by a charm that was said to have been buried at the centre of the family house.

Kofi Appeaning, a member of the family, who is also the Ankobeahene of the community, purportedly confessed to placing the juju pot for purposes of money ritual popularly called “sakawa.”

The substance had since been removed from the belly of the earth, but not after it had allegedly killed parents of the Ankobeahene as well as his siblings, nephews and children, without the anticipated money, because the protagonist had flouted the rules of the juju.

The Adansi Kuntumpa fetish priest, based at Patakro near Akrokerri, who performed the necessary rituals which involved incantations and slaughtering of rams to appease ‘the money-ritual’ god, also had his share of trauma, as the charm reportedly jerked him and he fell flat to the ground in his first attempt to remove it.

Deputy head of the clan, Stephen Kwaning told newsmen shortly after the ritual exercise at the Atobiase community that a certain pastor revealed the ritual acts of Kofi Appeaning, who is also an auto-electrician at Obuasi, to the family 25 years ago, but they never believed him.

According to him, the pastor made the revelation when the alleged ‘sakawa man’ fell sick and was sent to the man of God for spiritual healing.

Opanin Kwaning said the family started recording a series of deaths to the amazement of everybody in the community, thereby heightening suspicions that the auto-electrician’s money ritual was responsible for the deaths; even though he initially denied this.

He narrated that the family became alarmed when they counted 28 deaths in a space of 25 years, with at least one death every year.

The clan head indicated that the family was compelled to consult the oracle for answers shortly after the 28th death.

At the shrine, he said, it was revealed that a money ritual charm buried under the cover of darkness by the auto-electrician, who wanted to get rich quick, was responsible for the deaths and until it was removed, the family could not bury the fresh corpse; and they risked another death if they defied the order.

The Abusia Panin narrated that Kofi Appeaning popularly called Kegya confessed before the oracle about the ritual he had performed and declared his preparedness to support its removal.

And it was that exercise, spearheaded by the Adansi Kuntumpa fetish priest, which took place on the dawn of Monday, attracting curious and astonished residents to the scene.