Controversy is trailing the discovery of a suspected ritual shrine in Benin City on Wednesday by operatives of the Edo State Police command.

Three persons were reportedly arrested with 20 mummified bodies in the operations the Edo State Commissioner of Police, Abutu Yaro, said was in line with the command’s operational mandate of curbing crime in the state.

Speaking on the raid, the CP said: “Following credible information at the command’s disposal that some corpses were discovered in a building along Asoro slope off Ekehuan Road, Uzebu Quarters, in Benin City, operatives of the command immediately swung into action and mobilised to the scene.”

Among the corpses discovered at the scene of the crime are 15 dried male corpses, three female corpses and those of two children.

Contrary to claims by the Police that the building was a ritual shrine, however, stakeholders in Edo State said the building is a legal and private-owned morgue.

The leadership and members of Edo Civil Society Organisations, led by the Interim Chairman, Leftist Austine Enabulele, declared that the sad news is worrisome, as Edo people had no history of ritualism.

He said: “More troublesome is the fact that it was the Deputy Police Public Relations Officer in Edo State Command that led a media report on the sensitive matter, which would have suggested that proper investigation would have been carried out to arrive at what was reported in the media.

“Immediately the news got to us, we quickly dispatched a team of investigators to unravel the true situation of the matter and report accordingly for a follow up.

“The building is not a ritualists’ den but a newly-built morgue to house evacuated bodies from an old facility, because the operator had been given a quit notice there.

“The operational name of the morgue is St. Gabriel Funeral Home, with other offices at No. 24, First Federal Road, Benin City. It has branches in Anambra State, Ebonyi State, Murtala Mohammed Way, Benin City, and First East Circular Road, Benin City, where the bodies were moved from.

“The shrine discovered was a traditional form of worship by the proprietor of the morgue, as a spiritual protection for himself and his business.

“The police did not conduct an investigation before addressing the media thereby raising the alarm of a ritualists’ shrine. As at the time of putting this report together, the police had not visited other branches of the morgue, in different parts of Benin City and other parts of the country.”

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The groups also stated that the videos of bodies in circulation revealed that some of the bodies had name tags, and medical equipment was also visible in the building.

They noted that further interview with one of the morgue personnel in another of the branch offices revealed that there was a register of all the bodies in the facilities, with some of the owners already calling to take away the deposited bodies.

The CSOs maintained that the ugly development had shown that Edo state government lacked its own intelligence gathering mechanism to filter stories, while accusing top officials of Godwin Obaseki’s administration of sharing the “misinformation and fake news” from the police.

They described Edo as peaceful and the most accommodating state in Nigeria, while insisting that crimes could not be fought with media propaganda.

Another critical stakeholder in Benin, Osazee Edigin, also declared that there was no ritualists’ den in the Uzebu quarters of the Edo State capital.

A mortician, Mr. Chukwu Otu, is said to be the owner of the controversial morgue.

A man believed to be one of Otu’s clients, Mappiar Osaro, eventually identified his mother’s body at the contentious morgue. Osaro revealed that he deposited his mother’s body with Otu where he was initially operating the morgue along First East Circular Road in Benin, in November, 2021, but he did not have money for her burial.

The displeased man noted that he was now ready to bury his mother, but on getting to the morgue, he was told that the mortician had relocated and was directed to the new place, which was invaded by policemen on August 17.

Otu, it was gathered, decided to build his personal morgue in the building, in view of the existence of two other morgues in the area.

On August 19, Obaseki, at a joint news conference with the police at the command’s headquarters in Benin, gave the security  agency seven days to carry out a comprehensive investigation into the purposes and ownership of the facility.

Edo governor, who was represented by his Special Adviser on Media Projects, Crusoe Osagie, assured that residents of the state would continuously be briefed on the progress of the investigation.

Edo Deputy Commissioner of Police, SCID, Olawore Oluwole, who is handling the investigation, gave an assurance that the police would do a thorough job.

The mortician’s mobile lines were not reachable  when efforts were made, at press time, to get his reactions to the allegations leveled against him.

A big banner in front of Asuen Hospital, which initially housed Otu’s morgue, at No.15, First East Circular Road, Benin, had the following  inscriptions: “St. Gabriel Funeral Home, at St. John Hospital (RC 2492602): O.T. Best Mortician, home mortuary embalmment, grave design, home embalmment, ambulance service, etc. and dealer in hospital and mortuary equipment (08092343814 and 08063692998).

“Head office – Amasiri Community, Afikpo North, Owutu Eda Road, Ebonyi State. Anambra Office – St. Bernarbees, Uga June, Bethel Hospital, Idemili North, Anambra State. Branch Office – Asuen Hospital, No. 15, First East Circular Road, Benin City, Edo State.”

On August 17, the Edo police command, through its Deputy Spokesperson, Jennifer Iwegbu, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), stated that policemen uncovered a den of ritualists, with twenty mummified bodies, within Benin metropolis, consisting of fifteen males, three females and two children.

As at August 17, she revealed that policemen at the scene arrested three male suspects: Chimaobi Okoewu and Oko Samuel, both of Afikpo in Ebonyi State, as well as Gideon Sunday, an indigene of Akwa Ibom State, while other suspected criminals fled, with intensive efforts ongoing to apprehend them, but on August 18, the apprehended suspects increased to four.

Iwegbu noted that the feat was in pursuance of the command’s operational mandate of nipping crimes in the bud.

She said: “Operatives of the Edo State Police Command, on August  17, 2022, unravelled a suspected ritual shrine.

“Following credible information at the command’s disposal that some bodies were discovered in a building along Asoro Slope, off Ekenhuan Road, Uzebu Quarters, Benin City, operatives of the command immediately swung into action and mobilised to the scene.”

Edo deputy police spokesperson also quoted Edo Commissioner of Police, Abutu Yaro, as directing the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of the state’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID), to carry out a discreet investigation, to unravel the circumstances surrounding the discovered bodies.

Yaro enjoined Edo residents to be calm, while assuring that the command would continue to ensure the safety of all law-abiding persons in the state.

The suspects, however, denied their involvement in ritual killings or operating a shrine.

A refrigerator and the mummified bodies, with mortuary tags, were sighted in the area, beside the owner’s personal bungalow, that resembled a shrine, while a bedroom and a stretcher were also found in the uncompleted building.

One of the nabbed suspects, Chimobi Okoewu, disclosed that he was supervising a Plaster of Paris (PoP) ceiling work in the building, while insisting that the bodies were transferred to the new place, a proposed permanent site of a morgue, from where they were initially kept.

Okoewu said: “The owner of the place is a mortician. He was told by his landlord to pack out of his former place. So, he decided to relocate the bodies to his permanent site, which is his personal building. He was in a rented apartment before now, quietly doing his business.”

Another suspect, Gideon Friday, who disclosed that he applied to be a driver in the organisation, maintained that he came to check if his application was successful, only to be thoroughly beaten by youths of the community, without hearing his side of the story, and later handed him over to the police.

Samuel Okoh insisted that the owner of the building was his boss, a mortician, and the owner of the building, a proposed site for a morgue.

Okoh revealed that his boss decided to relocate from where he was operating from, because the roof of the building was leaking, thereby moving to the permanent site, while gradually developing his personal house.