Bamenda: Man who stole bones from deceased ELECAM head says he did it to survive

A 35-year-old man identified as Toh Peter, who was caught last week with bones extracted from the body of deceased Jakiri ELECAM head, has confessed he did it out of frustration and joblessness.

Peter told journalists in an interview in Bamenda that he was aware it was criminal to exhume a body and steal parts, but he had to do it in order to survive.

He spoke to journalists shortly after police forced him to re-bury the remains of Gilbert Yufola, head of Elections Cameroon Jakiri in Bui Division, who was killed by separatist fighters.

“Frustration got me into this. I ran away from Kom and I didn’t have anything doing to sustain myself. So I decided to dig these bones so that I could sell and have some money to sustain myself,” Toh Peter told journalists.

“The person to whom I was going to sell them called the police to pick me up. So I am alone now. We agreed that he will pay me 500,000 if I brought the bones,” he said after being asked if he was working with someone.

He was apprehended at Old Town, Bamenda, by the Judicial Police who were tipped by an informant.

“He came here in the night 15 breaking 16 (April), according to our investigations so far, and with the materials we have here, dug this particular grave in view of getting human bones, which he succeeded to get – like what you are seeing here, evidently,” the Bamenda Judicial Police Commissioner told journalists.

“So he attempted to go and sell to somebody at Old Town without knowing that he was our informant,” the Commissioner added.

The 35-year-old suspect told journalists he had been betrayed by the person for whom he was working.

He was going to be paid 500,000 francs for the two arm bones he had extracted. But the supposed buyer happened to have been a police informant.

Before coming to Bamenda, he said he had been a builder in Kom, where he said he came from.

But he was forced to flee the area to Bamenda last month due to insecurity.

“I am a builder by profession. But I abandoned work and came here because of the crisis. I have been here for only a month. I knew it was a bad thing but I did it to have some money with which I could start a new life,” Toh Peter said.

He fell into the police net on April 16, after he desecrated the remains of Gilbert Yufola that had been buried at Bayele Catholic Cemetery in Bamenda.

By Tata Mbunwe