Tordue Salem: “Policeman Dumped Corpse In Mortuary Since October 13”

An investigative report has shown how a policeman (name withheld) dumped the corpse of Vanguard journalist, Tordue Salem in mortuary on October 13, refusing to follow up.

According to the management of Wuse General Hospital, Abuja, the policeman who brought the corpse of the Vanguard Journalist, Tordue Salem, did not notify the family and the public about the latter’s death.

The hospital management stated this while exonerating itself from the matter saying it was the constitutional mandate of the police to inform the family of the condition of the journalist if he was alive or dead.

According to a report by Vanguard, the Secretary of Wuse General Hospital, Mrs Hanatu Sani, said on Tuesday that the hospital had no place in law to inform families of dead bodies brought in, saying it was the place of the police.

Sani said the non-release of information on Tordue’s death was because of the inability of the policeman that brought the body to follow up.

According to her, the police officer failed to show up, even when the hospital’s mortician called to inform him a day after the body of Tordue Salem was brought in that ID cards and other items had been found.

While disclosing that there were many unclaimed dead bodies in the hospital’s morgue, Sani explained that the medical centre did not release bodies brought by the police to their families or relatives without authorisation from the police.

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This, she explained, was to avoid trouble “because you may release a dead body to relatives and another set of relatives would come up saying the one with the body is a faction”.

“If the police did not come, there was nothing we could have done. We have a lot of unclaimed corpses here in the morgue. Most of them are victims of these hit-and-run drivers.

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“The law says after three months we can bury unclaimed bodies but here, we keep them even up to two years. It’s when after that and we don’t see the relatives that we write to the Commissioner of Police, the judge and other relevant authorities to bury them.

“The challenge we had in this case was the policeman that refused to come back after he brought the body. The mortician said he called him the very next day after he found the deceased’s particulars but he refused to come. He was calling him to come and check and see how he could contact the relatives but the policeman never showed up,” she stated.