The Kwara State Police Command has arrested four men in connection with two separate cases involving the alleged removal of human heads from exhumed graves and the possession of suspected human hands allegedly intended for money making rituals.
The Commissioner of Police in the state, Ojo Adekimi, disclosed this on Tuesday while briefing journalists at the command headquarters in Ilorin, where he provided details of investigations into the incidents.
In the first case, two men, identified as Abu Jimoh and Ayo Jimoh, were arrested over the alleged exhumation of graves and removal of human heads from buried bodies at a cemetery in Omupo, Kwara State.
The incident reportedly came to light in May 2026 when residents visited the cemetery to bury a deceased person and discovered that some graves had been exhumed, with the heads of the buried bodies missing.
Adekimi said police operatives arrested the two suspects at about 5am on October 8, following an intelligence led investigation, while they were allegedly digging graves at the cemetery.
He said preliminary investigations showed that the suspects allegedly confessed to the crime during interrogation and identified a herbalist, Mukaila Bello, as the alleged buyer of the missing human heads.
The police, however, did not establish whether Bello had been arrested as of the time the report was filed.
The command said investigations were ongoing and that the suspects would be arraigned in court upon their conclusion.
In a separate incident, two other men, Kamalden Lukmon and AbdulGaniyu Ibrahim, were arrested after police operatives recovered two suspected human hands during an operation along Bakase Road in Alapa, Kwara State.
The arrests were made at about 4pm on October 8, while the discovery of the suspected body parts prompted further investigations into their origin and the circumstances surrounding the suspects’ possession of them.
According to the police commissioner, preliminary interrogation indicated that the suspects allegedly intended to use the body parts for money making rituals.
The suspects reportedly told investigators that a vigilante member, identified as Abdulraf Apata, had handed the suspected human hands over to them.
The police said the allegation against Apata was being investigated to establish the facts and determine whether other individuals were involved in the case.
Lukmon and Ibrahim were being detained at the Violent Crimes Response Unit as investigations continued.
The command added that investigators were working to establish the identity of the possible victim and determine the circumstances surrounding the death connected to the investigation.
The police said further investigations would establish the full circumstances of both incidents.
