Lagos — It was the late Afro beat maestro, Fela Anikulapo Kuti who sang the song in the 1990's. He sang the song, Double wahala for dead body and the owner of dead body.

The late musician might have had Lagos cemeteries of today in mind when he recorded that monster hit some years back.

Reason: Cemeteries in the nation's commercial capital are no longer haven of peace for the dead. They are no longer places for the dead to rest in peace. They have now become places to scatter in pieces. They have suddenly become the Biblical valley of the dry bones.

Owing to congestion in nearly all the public cemeteries in Lagos, corruption among cemetery attendants as well as the ever increasing rate of deaths in the city which exerts pressure on existing facilities, dead bodies are now being dumped on the ground or already decomposed ones exhumed for fresh ones.

For convincing evidence, take a trip to Atan cemetery in Yaba in the heart of Lagos or the Mushin local government area-owned burial ground at Unity Road, Matori, on a rainy day or breezy afternoon and watch your nostril assaulted by the putrid stench oozing from bodies at various stages of decomposition.

In the past, some Nigerians were arrested by men of the Nigeria Police for going to the Atan cemetery and the Matori cemetery to exhume corpses, cut off their heads for money ritual purposes.

On Wednesday during the week, another syndicate that had been entering these cemeteries to cart away heads of dead people was apprehended by the police.

The skull exhumer, who was identified as Tunde Adenuga, was reported to have been arrested beside Atan cemetery by eagle-eyed policemen at about 4:00 am on this day. He was caught with nine skulls packed in two different polythene bags.

In his response to questions from those who gathered to have a glimpse of him at the Lagos State Police Headquarters, Ikeja, the 42-year old skull exhumer explained that he was pushed into the criminal act because of poverty.

According to him, he had been given a quit notice by his landlord but that he ha nowhere or no one to run to for financial assistance. Adenuga admitted he was once an employee of the cemetery before he was butted out for reasons he did not disclose. He said he seized the opportunity of knowing the cemetery inside-out to carry out the nefarious activity whenever he needed of money.

He said he could sell a skull for the sum of N3, 000 adding that he used to go for skulls after demands from his clients.

The situation, although not entirely new to people of Lagos , is so bad that residents who learnt about the fresh arrest by the police called on government to intervene by providing adequate security at the public cemeteries in the metropolis.

"These skull traders are not being fair to the dead," snarled Magaret Edunjobi, a food vendor who was around when Adenuga and his accomplice, Suleiman Ogunyemi were being led into a vehicle by the police in Ikeja.

She said with the desire of people to be rich at all cost, a situation that often led some people to burial ground in search for human parts for money rituals, the federal and state governments across the country ought to know that all was not well in the country.

"Government ought to do more in job creation to curb increase in criminal activities," she added.