The Anambra State Police Command on Thursday announced the arrest of 11 persons with two fresh human heads, two military AK47 rifles and two magazines in an undisclosed hotel.
It was gathered that the policemen from the Onitsha Area Command were tipped-off as to the activities of the persons in the hotel located at the bank of the River Niger in the popular Ose-Okwodu Market. After several intelligence gathering concerning the criminal activities in the said hotel, they swooped on the hotel in the early hours of yesterday and arrested the 11 suspects, which included male and female accomplices and the owner of the hotel.
A police source who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he reviewed that during the operation that lasted for hours, the police team, led by a senior police officer attached to the IGP Monitoring Unit, cordoned off the hotel after several intelligence reports that human meat were being served to guests in the said hotel.
He revealed that when the police got access to the hotel, they made a startling discovery of two decomposing human heads wrapped in a cellophene bag, two military AK47 rifles, two army caps, 40 rounds of live ammunition and so many cell phones.
Though the Onitsha Area Commander, Mr Benjamin Wordu, declined further comments on the matter on the grounds that the police was still investigating the case to make further discovery, it was gathered that during the operation, an Infiniti SUV, belonging to the owner of the hotel, with registration number DA203FST was also recovered.
A market woman selling vegetable at the Ose-Okwodu market, opposite the hotel, where the suspects were arrested, said she had raised the alarm over the criminal activities in the hotel before the incident.
“Each time I came to market, because the hotel is very close to the market, I always noticed some funny movements in and out of the hotel, dirty people with dirty characters always came into the hotel. So, I was not surprised when the police made this discovery in the early hours of Thursday,” she said.
One of the suspects, who claimed to be a cleaner in the hotel, said she called her daughter to help her in the job on Thursday, as she was not feeling well, only to be rounded-up by security men, while disclosing that she had been telling the hotel management to give her the keys to the hotel room where the bad odour was oozing out, to no avail.
“I don’t know anything concerning this incident, I am just an ordinary cleaner in the hotel, even my daughter just returned from school for holidays and I begged her to assist me clean the hotel on Thursday before we were arrested. Even before the arrest, I noticed that one of the rooms was permanently locked even without any guest and I have been telling the manager to give me the keys to the room so I can clean it, but he refused and there was a very bad odour oozing out from the room before our arrest,” she said.
A pastor, who was among the early callers to the Onitsha Area Command, who did not want his name in print, said: “I went to the hotel early this year, after eating, I was told that a lump of meat was being sold at N700, I was surprised. So, I did not know it was human meat I ate at such an expensive price.”
However, members of the civil society, led by Mr Justus Ijeoma, called on the police not to compromise investigations, in order to unravel those behind the ugly incident, while commending the men of the Nigeria Police for bringing their intelligence to bear.
Meanwhile, the Anambra State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Emeka Chukwuemeka, confirmed the incident and said the police had intensified manhunt to arrest all members of the cartel.