A 55-year-old cleric, Prophet Alimi Isaiah, was on Monday arraigned before an Iyaganku Magistrate Court Ibadan for allegedly being in possession of a human skull and a horn.
The items were suspected to be intended for ritual purposes
With court charge number MI/1731c/2017, the accused was arraigned on a one-count charge of unlawfully having a human skull in his possession.
According to the prosecutor, Mr. Sunday Ogunremi, the “accused on May 5, 2017, at about 09:10pm at Sango road in the Ibadan Magisterial District did unlawfully have in his possession one human skull.”
Ogunremi said that the offences contravened Sections 329(A) of the Criminal Code Cap 38, Vol. II, Laws of Oyo State of Nigeria 2000.
Meanwhile, the accused, in his confessional statement, had told the police that he’s a prophet in a church in Lagos, but that he learned machine repair job, but did not complete his apprenticeship before his friend lured him to join the pastoral job
He confessed to applying charms in performing his prophetic and pastoral work because his father is a herbalist, adding that he used the horn to hypnotise people who patronise him for prayers to part with huge amount of money.
He said: “I used the horn to control people that come to me for prayer in order to collect huge amount of money from them.
“I got the human skull from a particular area of Lagos, when they brought bulldozers to bring down a street. So, I took it from there for personal use because I know it would be useful for me.
“I was arrested on my way to Ibadan from Lagos at the stop-and-search point. I was in the public bus, when the police stopped our vehicle and started searching our bags before I was caught”.
In her ruling, the Chief Magistrate, Mrs. Abiola Richard, granted the accused bail in the sum of N75, 000.00 with two sureties in like sum.
Richard said one of the sureties must be a level 8 civil service officer and the second surety must be his blood relation with a National Identification card.
She adjourned the case till June 28, 2017 for further hearing.
As at the time of filling the report, the accused had yet to meet the bail conditions and he was remanded in Agodi prison.
