BENIN CITY – A widow in Benin City, Mrs Margret Modina Joseph has sent a Save Our Soul message to the Nigeria Police and other security agencies in Edo State over threat to the life of her son, Eseosa Joseph by persons suspected to be secret cult members.

Mrs Joseph told newsmen at the Secretariat of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Edo State Council in Benin City that the threat looks realistic; hence her son had gone into hiding.

She said that even when his going into hiding was for his safety and security, for somet now, his whereabouts was unknown.

According to her, the trouble which started for her son as far back as 2014 led to the murder of her husband. Mr Joseph Iyoha, who is a member of Ogboni fraternity in the early hours of February 25, 2015

Prior to her son’s dissappearance, she said he had issues with some youths in their locality who are members of different secret cult groups.

They had arrived his electrical materials shop on Upper Sakpoba Road axis of Benin City and demanded for credit facility which he refused.

How refusal did not go down well with the youths who later assaulted him until two boys allegedly came to his rescue.

The matter took a dramatic dimension when these two boys allegedly became the ones wooing him to join their cult group, with a threat to deal with him ruthlessly if he refused to.

Following the threat, he was said to have reported to his parents, but not without his father wooing him to enlist as a member of Ogboni fraternity instead.

This was the scenario until his father was murdered in February.

The widow also told newsmen that her husband’s death did not stop the cult boys on the one hand and members of Ogboni fraternity on the other hand from harassing her son.

She said the scenario continued until it reached a climax on April when their house was invaded by unknown gunmen at night, threatening to kill her son who managed to escape through the window.

According to her, after consultations with friends and family members, she asked her son to relocate from the area.

For sometime now, she said she had lost contact with the son who had since stopped calling her and his whereabouts unknown.

Contacted, the Police authorities in Benin City said the matter was under investigation.