LAGOS — Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS, at the Lagos State Police Command, weekend, arrested two herbalists and two Islamic clerics (aka Alfas), who specialised in buying and selling of human body parts.
Vanguard gathered that the suspects, identified as Wasiu Oyebamiji, Ogunshola Olakunle Afolabi, Akorede Wasiu and Rasheed Opeyemi, were apprehended in various parts of Ogun and Lagos states.
Sources at the state Police Command headquarters, Ikeja, disclosed that the Police deployed a team of undercover operatives to track down one of the suspects, Afolabi, said to be a specialist in sourcing human parts from road accident victims.
A source, who spoke to Vanguard on condition of anonymity, said one of the undercover operatives approached Afolabi for a human head for which he demanded N45,000.
The source added that after payment, Afolabi provided a fresh human head, confiding in the operative that it was the head of a woman killed by a hit-and-run driver on the Lagos-Abeokuta expressway.
“We then apprehended him and on interrogation he confessed that he used to sell the human parts to some people who parade themselves as clerics.
“He also told us that when he could not find corpses on the expressway, he would approach a grave digger, identified as Ajigbolorun Waheed, to bring human parts for him. When we searched his shop at Abule Egba, we found pieces of human flesh.”
The source also added that Oyebamiji was arrested at Oko-Oba market where he sells herbs and human parts, while Wasiu and Opeyemi were arrested at Sango-Ota area of Ogun State.
I use the parts for good, not rituals— Suspect
When Vanguard interviewed the suspects, they confessed to the crime but explained they that they used to mix the parts with other things to make concoctions.
Fifty-year-old Opeyemi told Vanguard that he was using the concoction to treat mental disorder.
He said: “I started using it when I had a patient with a severe mental disorder. Before the man was brought to me, I was told he had beaten up a lot of people and he had even broken his mother’s head.
“I was confused when I saw the case and I tried using my old tactics to cure him. After several efforts and my tactics were not working, I then consulted some of my friends and one of them told me to get human parts from two different persons, roast and grind them, then mix it with soap and dried plantain leaf.
“After doing it, I used it and it worked wonderfully. I want to say that I was using these human parts for good and not for money rituals.”
Wasiu also narrated how he used human parts to stop pregnant women from going through surgery while in labour.
He said: “If a woman is brought to me and it is said that she is unable to deliver safely, I will prepare a concoction with human parts and when I rub it on the woman’s stomach, she will deliver easily without surgery.”
