By Kayode Sanni-Arewa
There was confusion, Saturday morning, at the popular Ikoku Market in Port Harcourt City Local Government Area of Rivers State as business people in the area resumed to see a corpse with machete cuts.
This happened as Rivers State Police Command, which confirmed the development, said a preliminary investigation showed the victim was notorious and may have been lynched.
It also gathered that the vital organs of the male victim, especially the private part, had been removed, sparking suspicions that he had been killed for ritual purposes.
The corpse was abandoned in front of a new-generation bank on Ayama Junction along Olu-Obasanjo road Port Harcourt.
A source, who owns a shop at Ikuku, identified simply as Emeka, disclosed that the stomach of the late man was ripped open and his intestine allegedly removed.
Emeka said that the identity of the deceased was yet to be ascertained even as onlookers gathered.
However, the Public Relations Officer of the State Police Command, Grace Iringe-Koko, a Superintendent of Police, noted that the victim was known in the area for notorious activities.
Iringe-Koko dismissed the report of the harvest of vital organs, stressing that all the victim’s vital organs were intact.
She said: “On November 9, 2024, at about 1030hrs, the Rivers State Police Command received a report of an unidentified corpse lying near Ayama Junction/Ikokwu Spare Parts Market, along Olu-Obasanjo Road, Port Harcourt. Our operatives promptly