The police at Ojokoro Division have arrested a 60-year old woman, Mrs. Joy Olatunji Shittu and her two daughters, Aishat and Toyin for allegedly hiding the corpse of her late husband inside a room at their family house.
The incident happened at their family house at 14b, Olaitan Mustaph, off Clem road, Ifako-Ijaiye, Ojokoro area of Lagos State, southwest Nigeria..
Mrs. Joy’s husband, Jimoh Olatunji Shittu, died in 2012 and his wife, with the knowledge of her daughters, made attempt to bury him at her husband’s mother’s place in Delta State.
When the plan failed, Joy brought back the corpse to Lagos and kept it in a room for three years without the knowledge of the members of the husband’s family.
With the knowledge of the two daughters, they embalmed the corpse and were living with it until the police discovered it on Tuesday after a tip off.
Investigations revealed that Joy told the police that she did not tell her husband’s family about his death because she was not in cordial relationship with them.
When our reporters visited Ojokoro Police Division where the suspects were first detained, the DPO was not around to comment on the matter.
Sources at the station directed our reporter to the State Criminal Investigation Department, SCID, Panti, Yaba, Lagos for further information.
“There was such incident but the matter has been transferred to SCID for further investigation,” one of the police sources said.
When our reporters visited the residence of the Shittus, the place was deserted and gate of the house was locked.
The neighbours who expressed shock over what happened told our reporters that the suspects were the only occupants of the four flats.
Trouble started when information got to the Divisional Police Officer, DPO, and he sent his men to the house and they discovered the corpse.
The police retrieved the corpse and deposited it at a mortuary for autopsy and arrested the three suspects and immediately transferred them to SCID, Panti.
According to Joy, her late husband’s father was from Oyo State and the mother from Delta State.
She said he was sick for eight years before he died. And when they took him to Delta State to bury him on his land he bought there, they discovered that the land been sold to another person who prevented them from buring him there.
Joy said they had to bring the corpse back corpse to Lagos.
According to their neighbour, when the police asked her why she did not bury him in the compound since he was the landlord of the house, she said she was not in good relationship with the members of his family as such she told them that he was sick.
She explained that burying him in the compound would expose his death to his family.
One of the neighbours who was suspicious of what was going on tipped off the police who moved into action.
Anotherr neighbour said that since 2012 when the man died, four of his children have also died in a suspicious circumstances.
Only Aishat and Toyin who are now in police net are alive.
Naija Echo 