I sumbled into this report and laughed until I could not any more. Is it
true or just a hoax???
How can it be possibly true???
No way!!!!
Habib

read on


                 PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, Aug 20 (AFP) - Police in this
southeast Nigerian city said Friday they
                 were detaining an elderly man who was attacked by a
crowd after he metamorphosed into a human
                 being from a vulture.

                 The man, who gave his name as Anthony Onye, from
Umuahia, capital of nearby Abia State, was held
                 Wednesday morning outside the Rivers State government
secretariat, a police woman contacted at Port
                 Harcourt police station told AFP.

                 "True, true, the man na witch. Dem be four birds and he
change to man," she said in broken English.

                 A local reporter contacted by AFP confirmed that a man
was being detained after an incident Wednesday
                 morning.

                 Local people had told reporters that a small crowd
first gathered after an eight-year-old boy walking past the
                 government headquarters in the city noticed a vulture
perching in a tree and threw a stone hitting the bird on
                 the head, he said.

                 The local people said that as the wounded bird fell to
the ground, it turned into a three-year-old boy and
                 immediately started ageing rapidly, ageing to 75 years
old in a quarter of an hour, the reporter said.

                 By this stage, he said, a large crowd including many
government workers had gathered and reporters rushed
                 to the area.

                 They interviewed the man who, the reporter said,
admitted "he had been a vulture, one of four that had flown to
                 Port Harcourt from Umuahia" before being hit by the
stone thrown by the boy.

                 Enraged by his admission of witchcraft, the crowd then
attacked the man who was lucky to be rescued by a
                 passing policeman, the reporter said.

                 The policewoman said the "man-vulture" had so far
failed to explain his story and was not cooperating with
                 inquiries.

                 Since Wednesday, the incident has been the talk of Port
Harcourt, the reporter said.

                 Belief in witchcraft and mystical metamorphosis from
human beings into animals and vice versa is widespread
                 in Nigeria, particularly in the southeast of the
country.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html

----------------------------------------------------------------------------