'Sweeney Todd' in Nigeria: Eleven Arrested For Selling Human Meat

EDGE READ TIME: 2 MIN.

Furious over the newly adopted "jail the gays" bill recently signed into law by Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan? You might want to think twice before yelling "eat me!" there in protest.

Eleven people were arrested in the town of Onishta, Nigeria earlier this month on charges that they were selling human meat in a hotel restaurant. The New York Daily News reports:

"I went to the hotel early this year, after eating, I was told that a lump of meat was being sold at N700 ($4)," said a local pastor who was shocked to lean that he ate human meat and tipped off police. "I was surprised. So, I did not know it was human meat that I ate at such an expensive price." Guardian Liberty Voice reports that it is unclear how the pastor learned it was human meat that he ate.

A local resident told Nigerian newspaper Osun Defender "Each time I came to market, because the hotel is very close to the market, I always noticed funny movements in and out of the hotel; dirty people with dirty characters always come into the hotel. So, I was not surprised when the police made this discovery in the early hours of yesterday,"

During the raid on the hotel, six women, four men and the hotel's owner were arrested by police who found two blood soaked human heads wrapped in cellophane. Officials also seized two AK-47 rifles, other weapons, dozens of rounds of ammunitions and several mobile phones during the raid.

GLV further reports that while it is not an accepted practice, reports of cannibalism are hardly new in Nigeria. In 2012, a man arrested by police for cannibalism admitted to the practice and also for selling human parts for ritualistic purposes. He provided a startling price-list for human body parts: A head will usually fetch about N7,500, hands and legs go for N3,500�and a penis will cost N1000.


by EDGE

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