Mariam Adebukola 
The Niger State Police Command has said its operatives have apprehended five persons who were in possession of a human skull.
The state command said the suspects who were nabbed along the Minna-Bida road in Niger State confessed to being sent by an Alfa to bring the skull for a money ritual.
The spokesman of the state Command, Wasiu Abiodun, who made this known in a statement issued on Friday, said the whereabouts of the alfa could not be known.
He said, the two of the suspects, Isah Mohammed, 26, and Idris Mohammed, 28, both of Sakpe village, in Edati Local Government Area, who were earlier arrested were transferred to the State Police Area Command in Bida for further investigation after being apprehended.
During the course of the investigation, they provided information about three additional individuals who had assisted them in the act of exhuming a corpse and extracting its head.
Confirming the incident in Minna, the State Police Public Relations Officer (PRO), DSP Wasiu Abiodun, reported that the suspects had been intercepted in a Mitsubishi Lancer vehicle by another security agency at the toll gate along the Bida-Minna road. This interception took place on September 11, 2023, in the afternoon, during a passenger search operation.
The additional suspects include Ibrahim Jiya (18 years old), Suleiman Usman (22 years old), and Abdullahi Usman (24 years old), all hailing from the same address.
The police spokesman added that the three additional suspects were also captured, and they confessed that the human skull had been extracted from the burial site in Sakpe village. The burial ground belonged to Ndako Daniyan, who had passed away three years ago in the same village.
The five suspects have been transferred to SCID Minna for a thorough investigation and diligent prosecution of the case.
