Police Arrest 4 Human Parts Sellers: Heads Sold for N8000, Hands-N4000, Private Parts-N10000

 

The Lagos State Police Command has arrested five men for allegedly exhuming corpses and selling their parts for ritual purposes.

According to police authorities, the suspects –, Jamiu Adeleke, Ajibade Rafiu, Fatai Akiwowo, Kazeem Sanni and Agboola Kolawole – had at different times sold human parts in Owode, Ogun State.

The Police Public Relations Officer, Lagos State Command, Ngozi Braide said, “On May 15, 2013, Adeleke was arrested by operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad while he was trying to sell human hands for N21,000. Upon interrogation, he confessed that he bought the parts from Sanni at the cost of N6,000.

“Police arrested Sanni and he in turn confessed that the eight hands which he sold belonged to his siblings- his two brothers and sisters. He confessed that he went to their graves and cut off their heads. He confessed that he sold the heads for N8,000 each while he sold the hands for N4,000 each.

“Investigations led to the home of an herbalist, Rafiu, who is also the receiver. He uses the human parts for rituals. In his house, police recovered fresh hands which he claimed was meant for jobs for his customers. We also saw a bottle which he said was crushed human skull mixed in fluid. He said it was for power and he uses it to make medicine for people.”

Braide said investigations showed that prior to his arrest, the herbalist had hired some of the suspects to help him get a living human being at the cost of N40,000.

Braide added that Adeleke, who is an Islamic scholar, however, died while trying to escape from police custody.

The suspects, who did not deny the allegations, said they never killed anyone but only exhumed corpses from graveyards.

One of the suspects Agboola Kolawole, who blamed his indulgence on poverty and inability to pay his children’s school fees, disclosed that he had so far sold four heads of his deceased siblings to a herbalist, who in turn sold to some persons they identified simply as ‘Alhaji’s.’

Their arrest, according to the Command’s spokesperson, Ngozi Braide, followed a tip-off from the officer-in-charge of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, Ikeja, Abba Kyari, that one of the suspects, Jamiu Adeleke, was at the verge of selling a human head for N21,000.

See a video of the confession: