Hotel, Mortuary, Houses Of Suspected Organ Harvester Demolished In Imo

The Imo State government in collaboration with the police command has destroyed Jessy Best Hotel and Ugwudi Cottage Hospital mortuary services all situated along the Owerri-Aba Road in Ngor Okpala local government area of the state.

Also demolished were two houses, a bungalow and a duplex with large compounds and a smaller apartment in the Ngor community in the Ngor Okpala community, said to be a shrine where fetish articles were discovered and burnt by the enforcement teams.

However, unclaimed corpses were evacuated from the mortuary to another morgue before it was demolished by the state government.

Speaking with journalists at scene before the commencement of the demolition exercise, the Commissioner of Police, Aboki Danjuma, disclosed that the order to demolish the properties was issued by the governor, Hope Uzodimma.

The CP stressed that the owner of the properties, Stanley Oparaugo, popularly known as Morocco, has been declared wanted by the command, following his refusal to honour several police invitations.
He stated that credible intelligence revealed that the properties were a haven for alleged criminal infractions.

CP Danjuma stressed that the demolished mortuary was suspected to be a scene for organ harvesting, as most of the bodies were mutilated.

The CP said that the suspect, Oparaugo, can only run but can’t hide for too long, as the long arm of the law would catch up with him.

Danjuma said that under his watch, users of the Owerri-Aba Expressway would continue to witness safe trips, even as he urged members of the public to provide the command with useful information that would lead to the arrest and prosecution of the fleeing suspect.

The Commissioner for Health in the state, Chioma Egu, said that the essence of the demolition of the mortuary as directed by the governor was to prevent further health and security crisis in the state.

Egu also disclosed that the facility was not registered and licensed to operate while it was discovered that most vital organs from the deposited corpses were missing.

She revealed that going forward, the ministry would commission a task force to clamp down on preservative centres that do not meet the operational requirements.

The chairman of Ngor Okpala council area, Chika Ibekwe, said that the people of the area were grateful to the governor for being courageous in fighting insecurity in the vicinity.

She expressed optimism that with the complete overhauling of the security architecture of the LGA and the training and empowering of over 400 Forest Guard operatives, Ngor Okpala LGA would witness maximum peace going forward.