A native doctor and suspected
ritual killer arrested by the Special
Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the
Lagos State Police Command has
said that he grinds human heads
into powder as charm for ladies
who are looking for choice
husbands and big contracts.
Olasunkanmi Owolabi, a 43-year-
old native of Oyo town, said the
concoction is also used as cure for
stubborn sores, mental illness,
sickle cell anaemia and epilepsy.
He also said had planned to
establish a specialist native
hospital if government gave him
the approval. Continue…
Arrested with Owolabi were his two
co-travellers, Clement Omodijie
and Usman Saliu a.k.a. Alfa.
Omodijie, a 54-year-old indigene
of Ekpoma, Edo State, says he is
married with three children.
A grave digger at Gbogbo
Cemetery, Ikorodu, Lagos on a
monthly salary of N22,000 , he said
he had worked at the cemetery for
five years before he was arrested
by SARS operatives.
Saliu, a 31-year-old native doctor
from Ilisa town in Osun State and
Owolabi’s ally, said he trained as
an alfa (Islamic cleric) at Ralwu
Islamic School, Ikewu, Osun State
where he claimed he spent nine
years learning native medicine. A
police source said the three had
been charged with unlawful
possession of human parts.
Owolabi (43), who was arrested on
June 22 this year, was said to
have requested a human head
from Omodijie, saying that he
needed the skull to prepare a
medicine for his patients. Omodijie
obliged Owolabi by exhuming a
corpse from one of the graves in
the cemetery where he worked and
delivering the head to Owolabi.
Upon a tip-off from a member of
the public, the Lagos State
Commissioner of Police, Umar
Manko, was said to have directed
the officer in charge of SARS, Abba
Kyari, a Superintendent of Police,
to fish out the ritual killers.
Kyari immediately swung into
action with his team. He put a call
through to Saliu, saying that a
human head was urgently needed
to save the life of a wealthy
patient whose illness had defied
orthodox medicine. Saliu asked the
detectives to come to Ikorodu for
the transaction. But he was
arrested as soon as he showed up
at the agreed place. The human
head he came with was recovered
and put in a polythene bag as an
exhibit.
confessing his role in the saga
omodijie said, “i was content with
being a grave digger before i met
owolabi in a restaurant in front of
the cemetery in gbogbo area of
ikorodu. since i met owolabi, my
life has not been the same again. I
have moved from one problem into
another.
i was enjoying my n15,000
monthly salary as a grave digger
before i met him and he lured me
into supplying human heads to
him at n4,000 each. “The n***d
truth is that there is nothing
reasonable i have done with the
n4,000 per human head that he
has been paying me.
i used it to drink gin or smoke
cigarettes with it. it is the devil’s
money. “i hardly fell sick since i
was born. but after selling human
heads to him, my health has been
deteriorating.
I buy drugs as if it is food, making
me to spend more money than
before. “i was moulding blocks
before i secured a job in the
cemetery as a grave digger. we
were paid on a daily basis. we
used wooden or machine moulder.
but whichever moulder we used,
we charged the owner n500 per
bag of cement, which can give one
about 40 blocks. if we did three
bags, we collected n1,500. “when i
got a job in the cemetery, i was
happy because it is not as hard as
moulding blocks.
The salary was small but i was
enjoying it. the grave was shallow
or deep, depending on the owner of
the corpse and the way he or she
wants it to be buried. “my trouble
started a day i went to buy food
opposite the cemetery. that was
where i met owolabi and he said
there was something he had
wanted to tell me.
He asked whether i was a worker
in the cemetery and i said yes. he
said i should give him a human
head and i asked him what he
meant. he said the head of a
corpse already buried. “we have
cemetery rules which forbid us
from doing such a thing. i told him
that i would not be able to do that,
and he left. but thereafter, each
day i went to the restaurant to buy
food, he would accost me with the
same request.
i insisted that i would not do it
because i did not want to lose my
job, but he said it was better to
sell human parts to him than
allowing them to waste. “I
summoned courage to ask him
what he wanted to do with human
heads and other parts. he said he
was a native doctor and alfa, and
that he wanted to use it to make
medicine.
He said he would grind it into
powder and mix it with certain
herbs for pregnant women to drink
in order to deliver their babies
without complications or
operation. he also said that he
grinds human heads and mixes
them with the powders some
ladies carry in their handbags,
saying that it helps those that are
looking for choice husbands and
big government contracts or
companies’ lpos to secure them
without stress. he also said that it
can cure sickle cell anemia, among
other ailments. “I told him that i
didn’t have any but if i got one, i
would call him.
A few days later, i called him on
the phone and told him that i had
got some. he asked me where i
kept it and i told him that i kept
one in a nearby bush. he asked me
to bring it to my house so that he
would come later to collect it. “he
knows my house because he had
followed me to my house several
times after we met and became
friends. he gave me n4,000 for the
first head he came to collect from
my house. t
he following day, he bought
another one for n4,000.” asked
how he obtained the heads he sold
to owolabi, omodijie said: “The
graves where i normally bring out
the skulls from are shallow, and
coffins are not used for the
corpses brought there because of
religion or financial status of the
owners. it is cheaper to bury a
corpse in a shallow grave than to
do so in a deep, cemented or
marbled one. “most burials done
in shallow graves are temporary.
that is why that section of the
cemetery is called the temporary
site.
after some months, the corpses
buried in shallow graves are
excavated and burnt. that was why
owolabi i should not allow the
skulls to waste and that i should
sell them to him instead.” “four of
us work in the cemetery, but the
other workers did not know that i
was smuggling out human skulls
and other parts to sell to native
doctors. it was only two heads i
had sold before detectives from
sars arrested me. “there is no
useful thing i can say i did with
the money.
I was deceived by the devil. i am
pleading for forgiveness because i
did not kill a l anyone to sell their
heads. i sold the skulls of corpses
already buried and had decayed. i
did not know that it would land
me in this trouble.” owolabi on his
part said: “i am an alfa and a
native doctor. but i am not yet
registered. i finished my arabic
studies in kwara state about 13
years ago and relocated to ikorodu
to work as a native doctor. i have
the ambition of building a native
hospital if the government gives
me an approval. “I started by
praying for sick people.
last year, i met this cemetery
worker (omodijie) and told him
about the products (human parts)
they were wasting. i learnt about
using human skull to do powerful
charms and medicine after
travelling to kano, kaduna and
other parts of the north. “in kano, i
met a yoruba native doctor who
told me that if i mixed ground
human bones with soap and some
herbs, it would bring luck for my
clients or patients.
He said it could also cure chronic
and stubborn sores and help
pregnant women to deliver without
complications or operation. it can
also cure madness and other
terrible diseases that defy orthodox
solution. “women who are looking
for husbands can also mix the
ground bones with their powder.
when they see a man they like,
especially if they want a husband,
they would rob the powder and
talk to the man and the man will
fall for them. it can also bring
good luck and help job seekers to
secure employment. “it can make
somebody to become rich. it can
cure epilepsy. a woman can also
bath with it and men will be
begging her to marry them
. i sell a tablet of the soap for
n2,000. it depends on the pocket
of the buyer. some buy it for
n1,000. I sell it around ikorodu
and ajah in lagos. “saliu had told
me to help him to get a human
head and i collected one for him
from the cemetery worker. he gave
me n4,000 and i gave it to the
cemetery worker that supplied the
products. “when sars operatives
arrested him, he led them to my
house and i was also arrested. i
knew the grave digger to be a
worker in gbogbo cemetery at
ikorodu. when he wanted to throw
away some (human) parts, i told
him that i needed them. i normally
gave him n4,000 per skull.” saliu
said: “i am a native doctor.
i also spent nine years in ralwu
islamic school, ikewu, osun state. i
pray for women who are looking
for husbands. i collected whatever
amount they gave me. when the
prayer worked for them, they would
come to thank me with anything
they liked. “i usually lock myself
up to pray for my clients for
between seven and 21 days,
depending on the personality
involved. they paid whatever
amount they liked.
The only money they were required
to deposit with me was the one to
buy certain things that i would use
to prepare the things i would use
for the prayers.” asked why he had
to use human skulls for his
prayers, he said: “i had not used it
before. one of my brothers came
and met me in the house one day
and told me that he went to ila-
orangun in osun state to do rituals
for money but the person he met
told him that it would require a
human skull and certain leaves.
“when i met my brother, owolabi,
we talked about how to get the
human head.
he told me that he himself used to
do the same medicine with human
heads and some herbs and even
made medicinal soap with it. he
asked me to go and bring money
and he would help me get a
human skull. “i asked owolabi
where he would get it from and he
said he had a link at the gbogbo
cemetery in ikorodu. after six to
seven months, my brother called
me while i was still in bed and
asked whether the human head
was ready.
i told him to let me ask owolabi
about it. when i asked owolabi, he
told me to come and meet him.
when i met him, he said it would
cost n18,000, saying that he
bought it for n12,000 from the
cemetery man. “a friend of shina
came and gave him n15,000.
owolabi took n10,000 and gave me
n2,000 only, and told me that he
would use the remaining n3,000 to
pay for the transportation of the
human head to the final
destination.
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