Police have arrested laboratory assistant, Shola Opeyemi for allegedly buying pints of blood from some secondary school pupils.
The Lagos State Police Command nabbed Opeyemi at Orile-Agege after a local traditional ruler gave them information about his activities.
According to reports, Opeyemi delved secretly into buying and selling of blood after he was fired from his job with a registered medical laboratory that supplied blood to hospitals in Lagos.
He’s been in the black market blood business since last year but the traditional ruler became very curious when some senior secondary school students always seemed to be hanging around Opeyemi’s store.
Police sources told PUNCH Metro that part of Opeyemi’s job at his former place of work was to liaise with the hospitals.
A source said when Opeyemi was arrested, he confessed to the crime but claimed that he ensured that all blood samples were duly tested for HIV and other diseases before they were sold to hospitals.
Punch reports:
One of the sources said, “Within the community, everybody knew Opeyemi as a dealer in medical items like antiseptics, bandages, medical tapes and surgical needles but no one suspected he was buying blood from students until they (students) started flocking his shop for no obvious reason.”
PUNCH Metro gathered that as words had spread that Opeyemi was paying N1,500 for a pint of blood, making the students to hang around his shop.
The source said, “From his experience as a lab assistant, Opeyemi knew that blood was expensive. This is because Nigerians have not imbibed the culture of voluntarily donating blood. So what he simply did when he lost his job was to entice students with money, get them to donate blood and sell them at a higher price to hospitals who assumed he was working with a registered medical laboratory.
“There were a lot of students in the community who had at one time or the other sold blood to Opeyemi. Some of them who were apprehended alongside Opeyemi confessed that several other classmates were involved. Police detectives later went back to check the needle punctures in the arms of the students. All the students involved attended the same school.”
In a related development, another laboratory assistant, Tunde Adeagbo, was also arrested by the police at Abule Egba for allegedly arranging blood donors for hospitals for a fee.
A police source said community leaders at Abule Egba were suspicious of Adeagbo’s blood donation advocacy, thinking it was a cover up for another evil purpose.
“Whenever he was able to convince some people, Adiagbo would take them to some hospitals to donate blood. Although he never paid them for that, the hospitals involved paid him a fee for bringing in donors.
“The community began to fear that the blood donation was a cover up for ritual purposes,” the source said.
The Lagos State Police Commissioner Mr. Umar Manko confirmed the arrests. He said, “Opeyemi and Adiagbo were arrested when their respective communities raised alarm over their activities. Both men are currently under investigation at the State Criminal Investigation Department, after which the law would take its course.”
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