Police Recover Human Skulls in C/River

Police in Cross River State on Thursday at the state police headquarters, Diamond Hill, Calabar, paraded 47 persons arrested as a result of the communal war between Nko community in Obubra Local Government Area and their neighbours in Oyadama community in Yakurr Local Government area of the state.
The police also displayed six human skulls guns and other assorted dangerous weapons seized from both communities.
Briefing newsmen at the state police headquarters in Calabar, the state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Emmanuel Ezeozue said the arrest of the suspects and the seizure of the weapons followed a raid conducted by the police on both communities on Wednesday, about three weeks after the affected communities engaged in a war which led to the loss of lives and property.
He said the search was carried out by a combined team of the police, the military and other security agencies after the communities had been condoned-off.
He said the police are working on the theory that the skulls and weapons were fallouts of the communal clashes that pitched both communities
The police commissioner, said: “For quite some time now, we have been having problems in the central part of Cross River State on issues bordering on the struggle for land. Human lives have been lost in the process.
“I am speaking specifically about Nko/Oyadama communities. These problems seem to have defied every effort to bring peace to the communities and we have continued getting reports of people missing.
“So we decided to go into that community to bring sanity by cordoning off the place, carrying out raids and seizing weapons that are likely to be used in the conflict. So it was a combined operation involving the Nigerian Army, the Nigeria Police and the SSS.”
It is not an easy thing to cordon off two villages but it was done and it yielded results.

"We arrested a total of 47 people. They are
being screened to know the culpability of the suspects in the crimes committed on both sides. We succeeded in getting six shotguns, three pistols and six machetes and six human skulls. We don't know what those skulls are doing there but you will agree with me that human skulls are not objects of decoration in a house. We are trying to find out who are behind the skulls. Are they the people reported missing in the two communities because so far, we have gotten report of about six missing people? But we don't know who is represented by these skulls. Investigation is still going on." The officer in Charge of the Homicide
department of the police in the state, Joseph Inuayashe also said five of the skulls and the double barrel guns were recovered in Nko in the residence of a retired police officer DSP Ujong Omini.
But Omini denied the allegations saying the
skulls had been in the community for 500 years and had been
in the custody of his late father whom he said died last
year.