Residents of the Elele-Alimini community, Emohua Local Government Area, Rivers State have debunked a claim by the Chairman of the area Chidi Lloyd, who declared that the abandoned state government-owned general hospital in the community was being used as an illegal mortuary by kidnappers.
The furious villagers, in separate interviews, said the chairman did not carry out any investigation before jumping to the conclusion stressing that no criminal activity was perpetuated in the dilapidated facility.
Lloyd had recently announced that there was an illegal mortuary in the community’s hospital, where kidnappers kept remains of victims who died in their hands.
The LG boss claimed that he and the council’s Taskforce on Illegal Bunkering, during its operation in Elele-Alimini community, uncovered an illegal mortuary in the abandoned state government-owned hospital.
This had been stated in a release issued by the Chief Press Secretary to the chairman, Bright Jossy Elendu as he accused chiefs in the community of complicity.
However, chiefs of the community kicked against the chairman’s claims as they expressed worry that Lloyd had not carried out thorough investigations before making allegations against them.
The elders stated that the government hospital had been abandoned for over 10 years and all health workers left already but the mortuary was not moribund.
Vice-Chairman of Elele-Alimini Council of Chiefs, Chief Chris Enyindah, told a media outlet, NDV, “For about six to 10 years now, government has not been serious with that hospital and now, it is moribund; nobody works in that hospital anymore.
“We have called on government several times to come and reactivate the place, but to no avail. The mortuary is not like every other equipment that you find in the office which can be removed easily.
“There are corpses there. If you have a television in the office, you can remove it when you are leaving, same as table. But the corpses that are there, you cannot remove them. So, the corpses were kept there because the mortuary is functioning but when the hospital closed down, the mortuary section could not immediately close down.
“So members of the community have corpses of relatives still kept in that place. Right now, there are six members of Elele-Alimini whose corpses are being preserved in that place. The corpse of Mrs. John Felicia is there.
“Yes, there are other mortuaries around but since that one is functioning, people have no need of going to other places. People still patronise them.
“The man who runs it, now runs it as a personal business and we are aware. We have allowed him to provide that service to our community. We are using it. That means it has never been used at any time by ritualists, cultists or kidnappers.
“The hospital belongs to the state government and the state government has not done anything about the state of the hospital up till today.”
“We are having a lot of challenges, particularly as it concerns health care. We travel distances to attend other hospitals for the management of their health.
“We do not have anyone here, we go to Ahoada, Omoku and even Teaching Hospitals in Port Harcourt; there are people who cannot afford to travel the distance and it has affected health care here. Some people die because of lack of healthcare. Our people are suffering a lot,” he said.
The state Commissioner of Police in the state, Friday Eboka, following the alarm by the council boss, Llyod, was said to have launched an investigation into the alleged mortuary, with the aim of unraveling the culprit and their sponsors.
Upon the conclusion of investigation, Eboka, disagreed with Lloyd over his claim that the mortuary was used by kidnappers in keeping their dead victims.
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