Why we prefer live human beings – Suspected human parts dealer

LAGOS — Operatives of the Special Anti Robbery Squad, SARS, Ikeja have arrested three fleeing members of a syndicate who allegedly specialized in selling live humans and decomposing human parts for money rituals.

Their arrest came barely three weeks after some of their members were paraded at the Lagos State Police Command, where they confessed to have sold live human beings for N40,000, hands—N4,000 and head—N8,000.

Those recently arrested are Gazali Akewadola (60), the native doctor who allegedly offered N40,000 for a live human being, Alfa Taofeek Akinola (35) and Kazeem Sanni (25).



The suspects

To the bewilderment of all, Gazali confessed that live human beings were cheaper than buying dead human parts, saying all parts of a live human being are vital in the preparation of money ritual.

For instance, he said a life human being was bought for N40,000, “but at the end of the day, you get a lot of expensive parts from it. Aside that, it is even more potent because the efficacy of the charm or concoction prepared with live human parts cannot be compared with the ones prepared with dead parts.

“When a life human being is killed, one will get fresh blood which is used in preparing some charms. The same body will also give you hairs from private part, head and some mustache which are used for other ritual purposes. The private part is also very useful for the preparation of effective concoction. The head,flesh intestines, liver, heart, eyes, lips and tongues can be used for pepper soup which is usually very delicious than that of animal meat. I usually take the pepper soup so as to assure those who patronize us that it is not harmful. It also fortifies one spiritually.

“If you buy a full human being for N30,000 or N40,000 and pieces it, you will end up getting N100,000 or more because you will get more than 10 parts that will yield more money for you.”

Gazali who hails from Folahan, Ado-Odo in Owode Yewa Local Government Area of Ogun State, further said: “I am an Islamic teacher and a cleric. I own an Islamic school in Owode Yewa. I am also married with eight children. I am also a native doctor. I cure people of their ailments and help those who want to get rich quick, by using human parts to prepare charms and concoctions for them.

We use soft bones to cure epilepsy

“Most of the human parts I bought were sold to me by Kazeem Sanni. He used to sell dead human head between N3,000 and N8000, depending on the market price. The soft bones that can easily be grinded into powder are very cheap. It is just for N1,000. It is used to cure ailments like epilepsy.”

Asked why he did not use any of his children since he has eight of them, he said that would reduce the potency of the ritual concoction, adding that its potency depended solely on strangers being used. He said their victims were usually abducted from Lagos State and beyond, with the use of charms.

He further disclosed that aside the N40,000 paid to Sanni to get him a live human being, he gave him another N5,000 and a charm to hypnotize the male victims. But he said the plan almost failed as Sanni was almost caught. He, however, expressed regrets that despite the use of human parts to make other people rich, he ended up not only being poor but arrested along the line.

Money ritual charm changed my level

The second suspect, Alfa Taofeek, who is also an indigene of Owode Yewa in Ogun State confessed to have bought a human head from the third suspect, Kazeem, which he grinded and mixed with local gin.

According to him, “it was to enable me get rich. I am a Muslim cleric and I have been making people rich through this means but became jealous at a point and decided to get rich as well, since I was unable to get enough money from my clients.

“After drinking the concoction prepared with a human head, I got more customers and made more money. I even threw parties on a monthly basis to celebrate my new level.

“I also used part of the money to sponsor the graduation ceremony of some of my students in the Islamic school known as Alfa Taofeek Islamic School, at Owode Yewa.”

Customs officers lured me into money rituals

On his part, the third suspect, Kazeem Sanni, claimed to have opted for the money ritual business due to frustration from Customs men.

He said: “At a point, business was no longer moving because Customs men at the border were always seizing the goods, at the end of which their owners would force me to pay for them. I became frustrated even contemplated selling my father’s landed property. I decided to consult Alfa Taokeek Akinola to find out the cause of my predicament. He instructed me to get a human head in order to be rich. After that, he requested a live human being. I attempted kidnapping someone so that I can cut off his head but it was not possible. He then instructed me to exhume dead body from the graves which I did and got him three at the rate of N3,000 each.”

Their arrest, as explained by spokesperson for the Lagos State Police Command, Ngozi Braide, was in compliance with the Commissioner of Police, Umar Manko’s directive to SARS Commander, Abba Kyari, to get the fleeing suspects, after the arrest of three members of the syndicate on May 15, 2013, with human parts.

#vanguard

School proprietor caught having sex with 11-year-old pupil

Residents of Agric Olope area of Ado Ekiti have apprehended the proprietor of a private Nursery and Primary School, who was found in a bush allegedly having sex with a pupil of his school.

The incident happened on Monday after school hours.

Our correspondent gathered on Wednesday that the proprietor, identified as Mr. Tunde Ibitoye, picked the girl and another pupil of the same school and was taking them home in his car when he stopped at a deserted place and went into the bush pretending to be defecating.

An eyewitness, who said he caught the suspect in the act, said some minutes after the man went inside the bush, he called the victim to bring him tissue to clean up.

The eyewitness, who identified himself as Kayode Ayeni, said he became curious when he saw the girl going inside the bush knowing full well that a man had first gone into the bush some minutes earlier.

He said he traced the girl’s movement and found the man half naked and the girl also undressed and was in a compromising position.

Ayeni claimed that the proprietor was having carnal knowledge of the girl when he found the two of them inside the bush.

The argument between the eyewitness and the proprietor was said to have attracted a crowd of passersby and residents to the scene.

The suspect was said to have been beaten up and escaped being lynched due to the arrival of some policemen at the scene.

The policemen, who stormed the scene,dispersed the crowd and took the suspect away.

When contacted, the state command’s Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Victor Babayemi, said Ibitoye had been arrested for “defiling an 11-year-old pupil,” adding that the suspect was currently being interrogated by the police

The PPRO said the girl told police investigators that the proprietor had sex with her.

He added that the girl confessed that the last act was the fourth time the proprietor would be having sex with her.

He also said the girl’s father told the police that there was a time he noticed blood stain on his daughter’s clothes but the man thought it was early menstruation.

The proprietor, however, insisted that he did not have sex with the girl but was just assisting her home after the school hours.

But Babayemi said the girl had been taken to a hospital for medical examination, saying the result would be made public when it was out.

Babayemi said, “There is a man in our custody who was said to be caught while having sex with an 11-year-old pupil. The girl has been taken to hospital for examination and we are expecting the result.

“We are investigating to see if we can find other girls who the man might have defiled. If we find any, it would further corroborate the allegation. But we advise parents to alway ensure that their children are put in custody of responsible people.”

 

#punch

Stress can cause permanent damage to a man's sperm - and affect the mental health of his children

Anxiety: Stress can cause a permanent genetic change to men's sperm and even alter how their offspring's brains develop (stock image)

Stress can cause permanent damage to a man's sperm and even stunt his children's brain development, a new study has found.

Researchers have discovered that suffering anxiety or depression as an adult, teenager or even as a child could cause a lasting genetic change in a man's sperm.

Scientists conducting a study on mice found that sperm damage caused by stress leads to offspring developing a 'blunted reaction to stress' - a trait associated with several mental disorders. 

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine say this is the first time a link has been found between stress-related diseases potentially being passed from a father to his children.

Previous studies have concentrated on how environmental challenges - such as diet, drug abuse, and chronic stress - felt by mothers during pregnancy can affect their offspring's neurodevelopment and increase the risk of certain diseases.

In this study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, male mice were exposed to six weeks of chronic stress, before breeding, either throughout puberty or only in adulthood.

Examples of stress include suddenly being moved to another cage, being exposed to predator odour, noise or a foreign object in their cage.

Male mice are ideal for such an experiment because they do not participate in offspring rearing, meaning any external factors outside of germ-cell formation are essentially eliminated.

A team of researchers led by Professor Tracy Bale found that stress among male mice prompted a genetic change in their sperm that re-programmed a part of their offspring’s brain.

They found that offspring from paternal stress groups displayed significantly blunted levels of the stress hormone corticosterone - in humans, it’s cortisol - in response to stress.

Professor Bale said: 'It didn’t matter if dads were going through puberty or in adulthood when stressed before they mated. We’ve shown here for the first time that stress can produce long-term changes to sperm that reprogram offspring brains.



Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania carried out a test on male mice - finding that their sperm underwent a genetic change after they were exposed to stress

'These findings suggest one way in which paternal-stress exposure may be linked to such neuropsychiatric diseases.'

But researchers also point out that a reduced physiological stress response may reflect some evolutionary benefit passed on to offspring to ensure survival in what is expected to be a more stressful environment.

Professor Bale added: 'Whether such diminished stress reactivity would be detrimental or beneficial to offspring likely depends on the environment into which they were born, as well as genetic background factors.'




#dailymail

Miracle! Nigerian cook survives 60 hours under sea in shipwreck air bubble

• WARRI, Nigeria, June 12 (Reuters) - After two days trapped in freezing cold water and breathing from an air bubble in an upturned tugboat under the ocean, Harrison Okene was sure he was going to die. Then a torch light pierced the darkness.

Ship's cook Okene, 29, was on board the Jascon-4 tugboat when it capsized on May 26 due to heavy Atlantic ocean swells around 30 km (20 miles) off the coast of Nigeria, while stabilising an oil tanker filling up at a Chevron platform.

Of the 12 people on board, divers recovered 10 dead bodies while a remaining crew member has not been found.

Somehow Okene survived, breathing inside a four foot high bubble of air as it shrunk in the waters slowly rising from the ceiling of the tiny toilet and adjoining bedroom where he sought refuge, until two South African divers eventually rescued him.

"I was there in the water in total darkness just thinking it's the end. I kept thinking the water was going to fill up the room but it did not," Okene said, parts of his skin peeling away after days soaking in the salt water.

"I was so hungry but mostly so, so thirsty. The salt water took the skin off my tongue," he said. Seawater got into his mouth but he had nothing to eat or drink throughout his ordeal.

At 4:50 a.m. on May 26, Okene says he was in the toilet when he realised the tugboat was beginning to turn over. As water rushed in and the Jascon-4 flipped, he forced open the metal door.

"As I was coming out of the toilet it was pitch black so we were trying to link our way out to the water tidal (exit hatch)," Okene told Reuters in his home town of Warri, a city in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta.

"Three guys were in front of me and suddenly water rushed in full force. I saw the first one, the second one, the third one just washed away. I knew these guys were dead."

What he didn't know was that he would spend the next two and a half days trapped under the sea praying he would be found.

Turning away from his only exit, Okene was swept along a narrow passageway by surging water into another toilet, this time adjoining a ship's officers cabin, as the overturned boat crashed onto the ocean floor. To his amazement he was still breathing.

FISH FEASTED ON THE DEAD

Okene, wearing only his underpants, survived around a day in the four foot square toilet, holding onto the overturned washbasin to keep his head out of the water.

He built up the courage to open the door and swim into the officer's bedroom and began pulling off the wall panelling to use as a tiny raft to lift himself out of the freezing water.

He sensed he was not alone in the darkness.

"I was very, very cold and it was black. I couldn't see anything," says Okene, staring into the middle distance.

"But I could perceive the dead bodies of my crew were nearby. I could smell them. The fish came in and began eating the bodies. I could hear the sound. It was horror."

What Okene didn't know was a team of divers sent by Chevron and the ship's owners, West African Ventures, were searching for crew members, assumed by now to be dead.

Then in the afternoon of May 28, Okene heard them.

"I heard a sound of a hammer hitting the vessel. Boom, boom, boom. I swam down and found a water dispenser. I pulled the water filter and I hammered the side of the vessel hoping someone would hear me. Then the diver must have heard a sound."

Divers broke into the ship and Okene saw light from a head torch of someone swimming along the passageway past the room.

"I went into the water and tapped him. I was waving my hands and he was shocked," Okene said, his relief still visible.

He thought he was at the bottom of the sea, although the company says it was 30 metres below.

The diving team fitted Okene with an oxygen mask, diver's suit and helmet and he reached the surface at 19:32, more than 60 hours after the ship sank, he says.

Okene says he spent another 60 hours in a decompression chamber where his body pressure was returned to normal. Had he just been exposed immediately to the outside air he would have died.

The cook describes his extraordinary survival story as a "miracle" but the memories of his time in the watery darkness still haunt him and he is not sure he will return to the sea.

"When I am at home sometimes it feels like the bed I am sleeping in is sinking. I think I'm still in the sea again. I jump up and I scream," Okene said, shaking his head.

"I don't know what stopped the water from filling that room. I was calling on God. He did it. It was a miracle." (Editing by Tim Cocks and Giles Elgood)

Composer Of Nigeria’s National Anthem, Benedict Odiase Is Dead

The composer of Nigeria’s National Anthem, Pa Benedict
Odiase has passed on.

Mr Odiase died last night peacefully in his sleep. He composed Arise O Compatriots” in May 1978.

Mr Odiase retired in 1992 as a Deputy Commissioner of Police after being the Director of Music with the Nigeria Police Band.

May his soul rest in peace.