The ‘madwoman’ who was arrested on Monday with decomposing corpses and other human parts under Cele Nicer Bridge in Ijanikin, Ojo area of Lagos State, has said she, at times, posed as a sex worker to get victims for her human parts business, which she has been operating for nine years.
Preliminary investigation also revealed that the suspect, identified as Folake Folade, was not mad after all. Rather, she was discovered to be the ringleader of a syndicate that sells human parts.
The suspect, who was arrested alongside her accomplice, identified as Emmanuel Gbenga, disclosed that some of her victims were men who she lured from hotels where she posed as a commercial sex worker.
When Vanguard visited the scene yesterday, some youths in the area and security agents were seen combing the tunnel under the bridge for more clues.
One of the residents of the area, Mojisola Kehinde, who claimed to be at the scene when Folake sang like a canary, said: “She opened a can of worms when she was caught. She said she had been here (Cele Nicer Bridge) for nine years and that her business was to sell human parts to ready buyers.
“She said her customers usually parked on the bridge at night with their vehicles bonnets opened, pretending that their vehicles had one fault or the other, unknown to people that they were waiting to get human parts.
“She said her boys would be beneath the vehicle pretending to be working on the car to douse any suspicion and, in the process, hand over a nylon bag which contained the needed human parts.”
Another resident, Lawrence Oke, also claimed that Folake revealed that “whenever she failed to find preys to meet up with the demands of clients, she would dress up and head straight to any hotel of her choice at night.
“Any man that picks her for the night becomes a prey as he would end up in her den, where his body parts were later harvested and sold off to waiting clients.”
Lawrence also alleged that Folake confessed that she had boys who worked for her.
According to him, “she said once her hands touched someone, the person would lose his senses and follow her sheepishly. She said her husband came there at times to have sex with her at night.”
Bodies in the tunnel
The recovered bodies included those of a middle-aged man, a baby that was less than three months and a nine-year-old boy said to have been returning from holiday classes.
Also recovered inside the tunnel were school uniforms, lunch boxes, schools bags and adult clothes.
Two Ghana-must-go bags of foreign currencies and wads of N1000 notes were also found.
A mechanic, Bamijoko Ayinde, who has a workshop in the area, told Vanguard: “Do you know she was always found with new N1000 note each time she went to buy anything? And she would not collect the balance. We all assumed she was mad.”
At 1p.m. yesterday, Deputy Commissioner of Police, in charge of Operations, Mohammed Alli, was sighted at the scene in the company of other policemen.
However, Lagos State Police Command condemned the mob action on one of the suspects, who was set ablaze.
Police to probe mob action
Spokesman for the command, Chief Superintendent Chike Oti, confirmed the incidents, including the lynching of the suspects’ accomplice.
Meanwhile, the Commissioner of Police, Imohimi Edgal, has directed the Divisional Police Officer in charge of Ijanikin to cordon off the scene and ensure that the remains found in the tunnel are not tampered with, pending the arrival of police forensic experts.
According to Oti, “the Commissioner said it is regrettable that despite the various town hall meetings he held to sensitize communities in the state to the evil of jungle justice, some people at Olorunshogo community constituted themselves into a mob and took laws into their hands by killing one of the suspects, who might have been very useful in the ongoing investigation, had they handed him over to the Police.
“He warned that anybody found to have participated in the killing of the yet-to-be-identified man, will be arrested and charged for murder to serve as a deterrent to others with penchant for taking the law into their hands.”