A mild drama played out at the Federal High Court in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State Wednesday, when the court clerk read out a case between the Federal Medical Centre, Ovom in Yenagoa and 121 unclaimed corpses.
Lawyers and those who were in the courtroom were still in shock when Justice Ajiya Nganjiwa sought to douse the jolted occupants of the courtroom.
“Now everybody is afraid because they have mentioned corpses,” the judge joked.
But the lawyer to FMC, Bayelsa, Mr. K. Clement, prayed the court to grant his 14-paragraph application requesting that the hospital should be given the go-ahead to give the unclaimed corpses a mass burial.
After listening to the argument backing the application, the judge concurred, stating that it was “time to allow the dead rest in peace”.
Investigations by Thisday revealed that many of the bodies had been abandoned for over 10 years, thereby blocking space for fresh corpses.
I concur with the Lawyer of the FMC’s argument, if no one would claim the bodies, it’s better that way, instead of wasting taxpayers money on it. It could also results to people in charge selling the corpse body part for ritualist.