Clifford Orji's family rejects corpse

From Sun newspaper

Family members of the celebrated alleged man-eater, Clifford Orji, who died three weeks ago, may have rejected him even in death.

This is because nobody has come to claim his body.

Orji died after 13 years of awaiting trial in Kirikiri Maximum Prisons, Lagos, and his body was deposited at the Isolo General Hospital mortuary.

An authoritative source at the hospital, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told Sunday Sun that Orji’s body was brought to the hospital by prison officials.

However, since then, neither the family members nor the prison officials have come to check on it.

The source said the hospital authorities have been waiting for whoever would take responsibility for the corpse.

He told Sunday Sun that there had been similar cases where family members refused to claim their dead ones and after a period the hospital management procured necessary documents from the law courts, Ministry of Health and other relevant authorities to bury the abandoned corpses.

The source said: “But in the case of Clifford Orji, our hands are tied. We are patiently waiting to see what the government would do because, as it is, nobody is willing to claim the body.”

The senior official said though the hospital has symbiotic relationship with the Prisons and the Police, it would not have accepted the body of such a controversial person.

However, when contacted, a senior management member of the Prisons, who did not want his name in print, said the Nigerian Prisons Service did not do anything wrong by depositing Orji’s body in the government hospital.

The prisons official said: “The police charged Orji to court and the court in question gave us Clifford Orji to keep for the government, which we did for 13 consecutive years.

“When he eventually died, we could not have buried him.

“So we have to give it to the government hospital to keep for the government.”

He confirmed that during the 13 years the late Orji was in prison custody awaiting trial, nobody came to identify with him.

The prisons official also told Sunday Sun that with his death, the prisons had washed its hand off Orji’s case.

It would be recalled that Orji died three weeks ago after a brief illness.

He gained national attention following allegation that he killed and ate human beings and sold their parts to ritual killers.