Four suspects Oluwatoyin Odetunde, Adewole Elijah, Adeyanju Adeniyi, and
Odetunde Jacob arrested in connection with the human flesh.
A member of the syndicate, Odetunde, told Tribune newspaper that he got the human
flesh from Elijah and one ‘doctor’, one Olusegun Babarinde, who was
discovered to be a retired mortuary attendant.
Briefing journalists on the arrest of the suspects, the Commissioner of
Police in Oyo State, Leye Oyebade, said the suspects were found in an
uncompleted building and when searched, pieces of human flesh were found
in their possession.
According to Oyebade, “the suspects, some of who wore garments and
pretended as if they were coming from a church, claimed to be members of
a white garment church. But upon interrogation and search, pieces of
human flesh were found in their possession.
teaching hospitals in Oyo State.when interrogated, he was said to have
confessed to the police that the human parts he supplied to Odetunde
were taken from corpses deposited at the hospital mortuary. He further
claimed that they either belonged to unclaimed corpses of armed robbers
brought in by the police or mad people who died on the streets.
He referred to such corpses as wastes, saying he usually took some parts
of the corpses before mass burial. Knowing the workings of the
mortuary, despite having retired, Babarinde said he used to go to the
mortuary on Saturdays when he knew other attendants would not be
available.
“I was at Odo Oba when
Odetunde called me on phone that he needed the flesh of a dead armed
robber which he could use. I told him I had some which I got from a
deceased armed robber when I was still working as a night guard. My
partner, one Tunji, and I killed him beside a river at Odo Oba along a
private hospital road because he ran away when we tried to stop him one
night.
“My partner cut a part of the armed robber’s buttocks and kept it. That
was about four months ago. I covered it up somewhere and regularly
preserved it with schnapps. My partner died the following day in an
accident when he was going to Osogbo.
“I told Odetunde that I would check the remaining human flesh I kept and
he asked me to bring it to him in Oyo. He asked Mr Adeniyi to use his
motorcycle to bring me to Oyo. I tied the human flesh in a polythene bag
and took it to him. As we were talking, police came and arrested us.”
In his own confession, Odetunde (65) stated:
“I am a prophet of a
C&S church. It is true I asked Elijah to get some human flesh for
me. I wanted to use it to perform rituals for someone. I use any part of
human flesh. I took the buttock part from Elijah while I got the fleshy
rib part from one ‘doctor’ in Ogbomoso.”
Adeyanju said
“Odetunde had a church at Odo Oba
before he moved to Lagos State. So he said he needed to rent the place
out since no member was attending the church again. We wanted to discuss
on how I would be in charge of the church. He called me recently and
asked me to join him in Oyo. He wrote some things in a paper for Elijah
about ritual processes but I was not involved. We were together when
police came to arrest us.”
But Odetunde said that Adeyanju knew about what he was doing and had
come to him so that he could understudy him and learn how to do such
rituals too.
Jacob, who is Odetunde’s son, said:
“I didn’t know anything about the
issue. My father called me and told me he was coming from Lagos State to
Oyo. I went to him so that I could greet him and get some money from
him. I met Adeyanju and Elijah with him.”