The police commissioner 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.
“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” he said
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”.
“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”.
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