A 64-year-old herbalist, Ishola Kazeem, and two others have been nabbed for running a suspected ritualists camp in Ita-Oluwo, Ikorodu area of Lagos State.
The Commissioner, Lagos State Police Command, Hakeem Odumosu, made this known to newsmen on Friday.
Odumosu gave the names of the other suspects as Israel Okon and John Charles when they were paraded before newsmen at the Command Headquarters in Ikeja.
Odumosu said the camp is owned by a team of people who operate an illegal security outfit, where people are tortured and detained.
He said: “Based on a credible intelligence gathered, detectives, attached to the Sagamu Road Police Division, Ikorodu, busted the camp of an illegal security outfit, with a name: ‘Citizens for Peace and First Aid Mission of Nigeria,’ where innocent citizens arrested were detained and tortured.
“Investigations also revealed that the illegal outfit was recruiting and training young Nigerians, who were kitted with uniform and accoutrements similar to those of government security agencies in Nigeria.
“While clamping down on the camp of the outfit at Sagamu Road, Ikorodu, a shallow grave was discovered where human skeleton, including the skull of a victim, who was allegedly arrested and tortured to death, were found.
“During the investigations, some suspects, including a native doctor, who is a member of the gang, allegedly using the parts of their victims for ritual purposes, were arrested.”
The three suspects, during interrogation, confessed that the decomposed body of one person was exhumed from the camp by the police.
They however said that he was killed during a mob attack after he was accused of attempting to rob a hotel in the area.
Okon said: “I was deployed to a hotel at Ita Oluwo on Sagamu Road to work as a guard in the camp where the corpse was found.
“But I discovered later that they were involved in rituals, only used the camp as their base for training and meeting.
“I also witnessed the death of only one person in the camp.
“The person was a robber who went to rob at the hotel I was working.
“It was the owner of the hotel who told our Commander to take the robber to the Police Station but instead brought him to our base, where the man later died.
“My Commander then told me to dig a grave where the robber was buried.
“Thereafter, he detained me at the base because he didn’t want me to expose him, which I am also afraid of not being arrested, but I was eventually arrested by the operatives unfortunately.
“One week later, our Commander brought out the corpse and cut off its head.
“He took it to a herbalist, which I don’t know what they wanted to use it for.”
Kazeem claimed that the skull was brought to him by one Nwoke, who is the Commander of the camp, but presently at large, claiming he wanted to use it for money ritual.
He said before the skull was brought, flood had ravaged his house and he had nowhere to stay with his family members, but one of his friends, who was close to the Commander, spoke with him to allow him stay within.
He said that was how he moved in.
He said: I never knew what they were doing in the camp when I got there.
“And I was still practicing my herbalists trade.
“It was from there the Commander saw me and then brought human skull for me to prepare money ritual for him and I told him to come and pick it.
“I was still waiting for him to come pick it when policemen stormed the camp and arrested me and two others with the skull and some others training in the camp.
“I regret going into the camp in the first place.
“I am not a ritual person.
“If I do it for people, I wouldn’t be in this stage.
“I would have been richer that what I am now.”
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