Police arrest 10 suspected ritualists in Lagos

Tamarauemi Ebimini

The Police Command in Lagos State says it has arrested a gang of 10 suspected ritualists, who specialise in killing people and selling their body parts to ritualists.

The command’s spokesperson, SP Benjamin Hundeyin, confirmed their arrest on Friday, while parading them before newsmen.

Hundeyin said that the leader of the gang, a 33-year-old man, Ademola Akinlosotu, used to exhume corpses from cemeteries and sell the parts to money ritualists.

He said those arrested included a community chief, an Ifa priest, an Osun priestess, an Islamic cleric and a trado-medicine practitioner.

He said they were arrested through intelligence reports from members of the public.

Hundeyin said that report obtained by the police also revealed that the suspects usually bring in people to their hide-out, adding that those people never came out alive again.

He said exhibits of different human parts were recovered from the suspects.

He said the police were on the trail of other suspects.

The spokesperson of the Police Command in Lagos State said the suspects would be charged to court as soon as investigations were completed.

Speaking to newsmen on the sidelines of the parade, the leader of the gang, Ademola, said he was got the human parts from dead bodies buried at the cemetery, before he graduated to killing – a job he had been doing for years.

Ademola said he moved to killing people to harvest parts because his clients requested for fresh parts and not dead body parts.

He said while he and some members of the gang would do the killings, he supplied the parts.

Ademola said he usually supplied the parts to a 52-year-old man, Ahmed Wahab, aka Alfa Bororo, who operated from Badagry in Lagos State and Ogun, to supply his clients.

According to him, a fresh human head is sold at N45,000 or N50,000 while a dry human head sells between N30,000 and N35,000; heart for N70,000 and hands for N50,000.

Ademola also said that he had only killed two persons, which included a friend he met through the social media, before he was arrested.

He said before they killed anyone, the harbalist will be contacted to consult the oracle if the killing would be successful or would bring trouble.

The suspect claimed that a traditional ruler in Badagry requested him to kill his son that was giving him problems.

He also said that the day they were to carryout the killing was the day his online friend visited him and he was killed.

The suspect said all he needed was the head, the heart and the hands.