Sunday, August 18, 2024 -Two suspects found with a human head exhumed from a grave at Amuloko Area in Ibadan, Oyo State, have said that they are paid N5,000 for each head.
The suspects identified
as Mustapha Bello and Damilare Oladele, were arrested by men of the Amotekun
Corps.
According to the Nigerian Tribune, the
suspects were accosted at dawn on Monday by a night guard who saw them carrying
a bag, and when challenged, Bello, who was the one carrying the bag, tried to
struggle with the security man, which gave Oladele the chance to escape.
Bello was eventually
subdued and handed over to Amotekun for investigation.
When the news went round the city
with the video recording of Bello when he was caught, it was learnt that a law
enforcement agent who had noticed the closeness of Bello and Oladele suspected
Oladele of being the arrested suspect’s accomplice and challenged him same day
in the evening
The crowd, which had gathered, was said to have
started beating the suspect, leading to his pleas and confession to being part
of the operation carried out to get the human head.
He was also immediately transferred to Amotekun
for investigation.
In an interview with Sunday
Tribune, Bello, a 32-year-old carpenter, claimed that one Saheed introduced him
to the business.
“I’m an Ibadan indigene living in
Labo area. It is true that I went with my partner to exhume a dead body and
remove the head at Amuloko area," he said.
“One Saheed was the one who brought me into
this kind of work. He works as a security man. He asked me to follow him to
work in a place when I told him I was not having money. He told me not to
worry, promising to give me some money the following day. I asked him the kind
of work we were going to do but he said he would let me know when we arrive the
place.
“When we got to a
gravesite in front of a residence at Ita Ege at about 1am, he opened up that we
were there to get human head. We used cutlass and our hands to remove the mound
of earth covering the grave. He removed the head and returned the remains into
the grave.
“It is Saheed who used to sell the
head. He used to give me N5,000 as my share
"I went to the last operation
with another accomplice, Damilare. After cutting the head, I was the one
carrying it in a sack on our way back home when I was arrested by local
vigilante. My partner escaped, and I was handed over to Amotekun.”
Explaining his involvement, the
second suspect said: “I am Damilare Oladele. I’m from Ibadan and I live at
Oranyan. I’m 25 years old. I’m a barber. I was arrested for exhuming a buried
corpse and severing its head. Mustapha and I started working together in
February this year.
“Mustapha was the one who really knew about
the operation and invited me. My role was to watch out for any approaching
security man while he would be digging the grave to exhume the buried corpse.
“Mustapha discussed the matter with me when
we were relaxing one day. He had been doing it. The first time, he told me to
go out with him that night as there was a task to be carried out. I asked him
of the kind of task, and he opened up to me that we were going to get a human
head. He told me that the one he targeted was already dry as it had been buried
for long and it would not be smelly when being carried by us. He promised me
the payment of N5,000 as my share."
Disclosing his gang’s
mode of operation, Oladele said:
“We used to get to the area where we
would get the human head at night at about 10 pm. We would hide in a place till
after midnight when we would begin the exhumation at about 1 am.
“After the head had been removed, Mustapha
would call me to cover the grave while he would go and hide the head. We would
retire to our hiding spot and wait till dawn before we would go home.
“He was the one who would take the
head to the buyer. After he had been paid, he would give me N5,000 as my share,
except once when he gave me N10,000 because we went for a fresh head. I have
worked with him five times.
“We did the last one at Amuloko in
Ona Ara Local Government Area in the early hours of Monday. The place was
described to Mustapha by one Afaa. They discussed it on the phone. The Afaa
said that the corpse was recently buried.
“We went to work, removed the head
and went to sleep in a nearby school until 5am when we left. Unfortunately for
us, we met a night guard who sought to know what Mustapha was carrying. As they
were dragging the issue with each other, I quickly took to my heels
I went to my shop and returned to where I
live in the evening to find out how things went with Mustapha. It was the
person he used to give the head for sale who came to me. His name is Saheed.
Saheed is a native doctor, and he was the one who introduced the operation to
Mustapha. He stopped doing it and was only collecting the severed heads from
Mustapha and paying him for the job done. That was why Mustapha asked me to
join him in doing the work.
“He was the one who informed me that
Mustapha had been handed over to Amotekun. He said he would be using his phone
to monitor things.
“I was on my way back to my shop when
I was seen by a security personnel. I learnt that the crowd recorded Mustapha’s
arrest on video and posted it.
“The post was seen by the security
agent and on seeing me, knowing very well that I was a close friend of
Mustapha, he called me to come and take a look. He said that he believed I
worked together with my friend. That was how the people around started beating
me. I was handed over to Amotekun.”
Oladele confessed to smoking hemp and drinking alcohol but said that
he stopped taking marijuana last year, sticking only to cigarettes.
0 Comments