Following last weekend’s raid of the Ojodu, Lagos home of a self-acclaimed prophet, Emmanuel Adeyemi, where the police rescued 28 people, including those who were chained up, detectives have also discovered shallow graves in the home of the suspect.
The suspect who is in police net was alleged to have buried many of his victims in a swamp behind the house.
It was gathered that despite claims by the suspect that all those chained up were mad, the police were able to ascertain that many of them were of sound mind. One of his victims is a cancer patient, who had developed sores from being chained up.
While 27 others had been taken to the Lagos State Government Rehabilitation Centre, one was however taken to the hospital, as she was very weak and had terrible sores acquired as a result of long period of being in chains.
The Commissioner of Police, Lagos State Command, Fatai Owoseni, acting on a tip off, had deployed operatives at the Area ‘G’ Police Command Headquarters, to the house located at Oyingbo Unity Estate, Olamidun Close, Yakoyo, Oke-Ira.
Although the initial intelligence report was that a teenager, Adeyemi ‘s stepson, 17-year-old Toba Adedoyin was chained for always stealing, subsequent intelligence by the police revealed that 27 others were also locked up.
Confirming the incident to newsmen, Owoseni said they had initially invited the suspect to the station based on a tip off, and he claimed he chained up his stepson to cure him from the spirit of stealing.
He said, “When we got information that a teenager was locked up in a house, the Area Commander had invited the suspect, who claimed that his son was known for stealing and so he locked him up in chains to cure him of stealing.
“While we were still on that case, we got another credible tip off that there were other people chained up in that same house.
“Of course, we carried out a raid and confirmed the allegation to be true. But before then, we had contacted the Lagos State Government because we don’t have the facility to keep the rescued persons.
“His claims now that he’s arrested is that he is a herbalist, but why didn’t he tell us that when we first invited him to the station over locking up his stepson? He only told us that he wanted to cure his son of stealing. ”
On allegations of shallow graves allegedly found in the residence, Owoseni said:
“We had another tip off that they were people he buried in that compound and he confirmed it during interrogation. Because the area is swampy, the suspect had allegedly buried some people in the swamp and about three others in the house.
“When we asked him of their identities he said they were some of his patients that were brought to his home from the hospital, after they were given up for dead, that finally died in his care and were buried in the swamp.”
When we also queried him on the claims that he sold the body parts of the deceased to ritualists, he swore that he was only a traditional healer and not a human parts seller.
Owoseni said investigation was ongoing, as the police was working assiduously to get to the root of the matter.