Port Harcourt - Gun-wielding men have exhumed the remains of former executive chairman of the Asari-Toru local government area of Rivers State in Nigeria, Odiari Princewill, who died of the coronavirus (Covid-19) recently, according to a Nigerian news report.
The Daily Post reported that Princewill’s body was exhumed by armed men believed to be from his hometown of Buguma.
Citing eyewitnesses, the publication reported that the gunmen stormed the Port Harcourt cemetery, fired random shots in the air, went to where the late chairman was buried, and dug up the coffin. It was understood that they had subsequently escaped with the coffin through the Bille waterside jetty in Port Harcourt, the newspaper reported.
“I think they are system men. The way they came to the cemetery, everyone just slowly walked away. Sometimes we used to have people come like that, especially when the person that died belonged to a group.
“But this one is different. They just came and went straight to the burial ground and started digging out the sand. They were like 10 of them. They said they want to give the chairman a proper burial in his hometown,” the witness was quoted as having said.
The Daily Post reported that police spokesperson Nnamdi Omoni could not confirm the incident. Princewill reportedly died in the early hours of Thursday of the coronavirus and was buried immediately at the Port Harcourt cemetery in line with the Covid-19 burial protocol by officials of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
On Saturday, figures on real-time Covid-19 data portal Worldometer indicated that Africa's most populous country currently had 9302 confirmed Covid-19 cases, with 261 associated deaths.