121 Unclaimed Corpses Taken To Federal High Court

A14-paragraph application was presented to a Federal High Court requesting mass burial of unclaimed corpses.

This was the situation at the Federal High Court, Yenagoa, Bayelsa, yesterday (Wednesday, June 22, 2016), as Federal Medical Centre, Ovom in Yenagoa brought 121 unclaimed corpses to court. The lawyer, Mr. K. Clement, prayed the court to grant his request. The judge immediately did after listening to Mr. Clement’s argument backing the application with the explanation that many of the bodies had been dumped for over 10 years.

“The application is hereby granted for all the 121 abandoned corpses to be buried. All agencies and bodies involved must comply with this order,” he said.

The Chief Medical Director (CMD) of Federal Medical Centre, Ovom, Yenagoa, Dr. Dennis Allagoa, had earlier clarified that the decision was taken to create space in the mortuary and allow for fresh corpses, citing pollution of the health facility as another reason for the decision. Dr. Allagoa said, “We issued a 21-day public notice because we noticed that corpses have littered the entire mortuary and there was no space to take in new corpses. As the decay goes on in the mortuary, the corpses have become a threat to human life because chemical and biochemical effects are on-going. So we want to clean up the area so that people can enjoy the benefit of a good site and space to bring in their corpse.

Dr. Allagoa explained further, “A lot of them were corpses that were deposited by the security agents. Most of them are just bones, legs; they are not actually full body parts. People that died on the road, they brought them, from the river they brought them. People that died due to militancy, they brought them in their mass and they kept them here.”