August 20, (THEWILL) – As the controversy over the discovery of 20 mummified bodies in a private facility in Benin City lingers, the State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, has given the police seven days to carry out a comprehensive investigation into the purposes and ownership of the facility.
Obaseki stated this through a representative at a joint press conference with the police at the headquarters of the Edo State Police Command.
The Governor, represented by his special adviser on media Projects, Crusoe Osagie, said the public would continuously be briefed on the progress of the investigations.
“We don’t want to preempt the outcome of police investigations, but the police is actively doing their investigations, a lot of speculations going around, some people suspect that the place is a quack morgue, where they preserve bodies.
“All kinds of speculations are out there. So, we are going to leave that to the police to conclude their investigations and brief on exactly what is going on there.
“Some people have been apprehended. They are undergoing questioning. Some people are still being looked for. They will be apprehended and they will contribute useful information as well and in due course, the governor has actually giving us seven days for them to come back to us with details of what they find out, was it just a morgue, was any ritual involved? What actually is the situation?
“No conclusion has been drawn yet. So the police will be allowed to do their job. They are actively on it. We are going to give them time to come back and brief us.
“We are going to ensure that we are going to be continually brief the public about what is going on.
“At the same time, we are also taking public health measures to ensure that just because we have these bodies there, that there is no public health risk around the neighborhood.
“Steps are being taken by the Edo State Ministry of Health and that is why we have the Permanent Secretary here.
“We have the Director of Public Health also here to ensure that there is no public health crisis resulting from this”, he said, urging the people of the state to be calm and remain law abiding.
“On the whole, we are just calling for calm. Edo is safe, there is no crisis, there is no indication here that there is any ritual killings involved or anything, but a lot of speculations are going on and this is the reason we are doing it police is active in its investigations they will come back to us and let us know exactly what has transpired”, he said.
On his part, the Deputy Commissioner of Police SCID, Olawore Oluwole, who is handling the investigation, assured that the police would do a thorough job.
“Based on credible intelligence, a bungalow was located at Asoro area and in that bungalow we found some dried bodies and some items like generator, gas cylinder, oxygen cylinder; while investigation was in progress, five suspects were arrested and they are Chimaobi Okoewu and Samuel Okoh, both from Ebonyi State, Gideon Sunday from Akwa-Ibom, Victor Obeche from Anambra and Yusuf Lawal from Katsina state. So far we are still looking for one of the suspects and efforts are being made to get him and his name is Otuu Chukwu, who is alleged to be the owner of the bungalow and soonest he will be apprehended. I want to appeal to all members of the public to remain calm as the Command is assuring that everything will be done to ensure that all hidden facts are unravelled”, Oluwole said.
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