■ ‘He instructed us to do so’
The corpse of a man who died over two years ago but was concealed in a room by his widow and children has been uncov­ered.
The incident happened at 14, Mustapha Street, Ojokoro area of Lagos State.
The deceased, one Hassan, Sunday Sun gathered, died two years ago at the age of 65 but his widow in connivance with his children allegedly kept the news of his death secret and locked up his corpse in one of the rooms in their house.
The two-year-old corpse, Sunday Sun learnt was discov­ered after one of the deceased’s daughters engaged one of their neighbours in a fight in front of the room. The door of the room was said to have been acciden­tally broken while they struggled with each other.
Curiously however, the corpse was discovered lying on a bare floor in one of the rooms with an empty casket by its side.
The wife of the deceased who is currently in police net along with two of her daughters and her grand daughter was reported to have said she acted on her late husband’s instruction as according to her, the late Hassan instructed them against burying his corpse until he had given a sign to do so.
Corroborating her mother’s claim, one of the daughters, Aishat Hassan said there was no way they would have gone against the wish of their late father who had given the strict warning that he must not be buried immediately after his death. According to her, their late father had told them before his death that they would see a sign at the appropriate time he would like to be buried.
Aisha who described her late father as a loving man said he deserved a befitting burial and insisted that there was no other reason they kept his corpse in a room for such a long time other than the fact that they did not want to go against their late father’s instruction.
She further argued that it was wrong for anyone to say that they merely dumped their father’s corpse in the room because according to her, what they have done so far to their late father’s corpse was a “dry embalmment.”
Sunday Sun further gath­ered that the Chairman of the Community Development Asso­ciation, (CDA) has equally been arrested by the police.
A source who preferred to be anonymous said the CDA chair­man denied the community’s knowledge of the late Hassan’s death, adding that although the community was aware that the deceased took ill few years back, nobody had told them anything about him in the last two years.
Although the family claimed they acted on their late father’s instruction, Sunday Sun scooped that the family might have decided to dump the man’s corpse in one of the rooms due to what a source attributed to the pressure being mounted on the family by one Mr. Ebenezer, to put the house up for sale.