The
police command in Ogun state have arrested a suspected ritualist who
specializes in buying and using human parts for rituals.
According to the state police commissioner, Ahmed Iliyasu,
the suspects were members of two syndicates that operate within the
state.
Iliyasu told newsmen that the first syndicate comprising
of 67-year-old Lateef Aremu pictured above and 32-year-old Kola
Sodipo, specialized in purchasing and exhuming corpses for money ritual.
They were arrested following a tip-off from members of the public.
When interrogated, 67-year-old Lateef Aremu, said the business has
been profitable as he has been able to build four houses and acquire 15
cars.
Aremu said;
“I am a farmer and an
herbalist. We were doing a foundation in Itoko where I wanted to build a
house; there. We saw these bones and we packed them in a bag and that
is all. However, when we wanted to do money ritual, he brought a dry
skull for the purpose. What we did was to grind the skull and add other
ingredients, including a white dove and local soap. It has been up to 20
years since I have been in the business. I don’t use human parts all
the time. I only do once in a while. I have built four houses and bought
up to 15 vehicles since 1980 when I started this business”
His accomplice, 32-year-old Sodipo, denied knowing that the old man used skulls for rituals.
“I am a farmer. I know
baba (Aremu) to be an herbalist, because he usually comes to see my
landlord. I also trained as an herbalist. Someone came to me requesting
for money ritual and I directed him to baba who negotiated and collected
N75, 000 from the client but the ritual failed. The man called me to
complain and I asked him to collect his money. He wasn’t ready to
collect the money, he wanted it repeated but it failed again. I didn’t
know anything about the skull. I didn’t take any skull to him. I only
specialized in working for petty traders to boost their trade”.
The second syndicate Adebayo Mudasiru and Rashid Abass said they
bought human parts for N12, 000. They were arrested with dry and fresh
human parts, including a human skull, flesh, teeth and four lizards in
Totoro area of Abeokuta, the state capital. The state police
commissioner said the suspects were arrested after they were sighted
with a suspicious bag.
“They
specialised in killing people for the purpose of using human parts for
rituals. A team of Federal SARS sighted two men on motorcycle with a
suspicious bag and were forced to stop and be searched. Recovered from
their bag were fresh and dry human parts’ the police boss said
When interrogated, 36-year-old Mudasiru who claimed to be an Islamic
cleric, said it was one of their former teachers who sold the human
parts to them. He said they bought the human flesh, skull and about 12
teeth for N12, 000.
“We were coming from
Itoku to buy some of the ingredients. We didn’t buy the human flesh at
Itoku. We collected them from someone in Ijemo area of the town. We were
aware of the contents. Human parts are used for money rituals. We
actually wanted to use them for ourselves, to draw people’s attention to
us and we have been in this job for about five years. We bought the
parts from a cleric; the teeth are not costly. I don’t know how many but
we bought them for N2, 000; we bought all the human parts, including
the skull and flesh, for N12, 000. We went to an Islamic school in Ijaye
area of Abeokuta and we have been doing this, though we didn’t learn
this in the Islamic school. What we do is to burn the human parts, mix
the charred remains with local soap and snail water and use it to bath.
We haven’t done it before but that is what we were taught. We were
taught to mix lizard, human parts, snail water and other ingredients, we
don’t really know how the charms function but that is how we were
taught” he said
His accomplice, 33-year-old Abass, said:
“It is the person who
gave us the ingredients that gave us the human parts. He is the one who
taught us the way to use them and it is for money ritual. It is the same
day we collected it that we were arrested”.