Two middle-aged men identified as Alfa Yunusa Atikoko and Wasiu Ajikanle were on Wednesday arrested while exhuming 16 skulls and body parts from a burial ground at Kilometer 1, Moniya-Iseyin Road, Iseyin, Oyo State.
It was learnt that they were arrested after they had exhumed the corpses and parked the parts in sacks along the Alamole area by men of Odua People’s Congress and Yoruba Revolutionary Movement.
According to Daily Trust, a witness said that the suspects have been handed over to the police for further investigation and prosecution.
SaharaReporters had in September 2021 reported that two men, Saidi Mutiu, 41, and Olasunkanmi Oladejo, 35, were arraigned before the Iyaganku Magistrate’s Court in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, for unlawful possession of a human skull.
The duo were arraigned by Oyo State Police Command.
Mutiu and Oladejo were tried on a three-count charge bothering on alleged conspiracy, unlawful possession and interfering with human corpse.
Mutiu of Idi-Arere area, Ibadan, and Oladejo of Oju-Odo area, Academy, Ibadan, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges.
But the police prosecutor, Foluke Adedosu, had informed the court that the defendants allegedly conspired to commit the act of misconduct with regard to the corpse.
She said on August 31, 2021 at about 1:30pm at Challenge area of Ibadan, the defendants allegedly had in their possession one human head without lawful justification.
“The duo of Mutiu and Oladejo was alleged to have indecently interfered with a corpse by removing the head without lawful justification. The defendants allegedly tampered with the corpse buried at a Muslim burial ground in Ibadan where they dug the grave and cut the corpse’s head.
“Mutiu and Olasunkanmi were caught while driving in an unregistered Toyota car travelling towards Ibadan-Lagos Expressway by the Federal Highway Police patrol team on stop and search. The vehicle was searched by the police, the corpse’s head was concealed in a black cellophane bag in the car,” she said.
Adedosu added that the offence contravened Sections 242, 329A and 516 of the Criminal Code Laws of Oyo State 2000.
The magistrate, Mrs I. O Osho, eventually granted the defendants bail in the sum of N500,000 with two sureties in like sum each.
