Police Officers Have No Business With ‘Penis, Vagina Theft’ —Medical Expert

A medical practitioner, Micheal Ajidahun, also known as Bearded Dr Sina, has said police operatives have no business examining the alleged disappearance of one’s genitals when brought to their notice.

This assertion follows reports alleging the disappearance and theft of genital organs in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and other states.

Ajidahun, in an interview with THE WHISTLER, said the role of the police was to avert the jungle justice against suspects and, upon complaints, instantly take the victim(s) to a medical facility for examination.

“Why is it that someone’s vagina/penis is disappearing, and it’s the police that are examining it? Who does that? If you suspect something like that, you take the person to a hospital. It’s the doctor’s place,” Ajidahun said.

There have been reported cases of genital organ theft in some parts of the North Central region, and the most recent in the FCT was the reported case of a female genital organ allegedly “stolen” at the Federal Secretariat Complex.

The report was shared on the X macro blogging application by a user who noted that the victim was taken to the police station, where female police officers examined her. Her genital organ was allegedly confirmed to have been tampered with.

Reacting further, the doctor said, “Why would the police want to go beyond its jurisdiction to examine someone’s vagina? The police should take the victim to the hospital, and in the presence of a doctor, complaints of organ theft should be examined.”

Similar reports of male genital theft have also been recorded in the FCT, with many residents demanding an explanation and proof to validate the claims.

In the past three months, since the reported cases escalated, there has been no pictorial or video evidence by victims whose genital organs were missing.

Instead, there have been heightened cases of jungle justice as the police in the FCT charged 14 residents to court over raising false alarms after their claims of a missing genital organ were debunked by medical personnel upon cross-examination.

Delusional Disorder

While there has been no evidence to substantiate the claims of genital organ theft, Ajidahun believes the reports are false, and Nigeria may be experiencing a case of KORO.

“KORO is a condition in which the person strongly believes that for some reason or the other, their genitals are either disappearing or shrinking. It gets so bad that it causes terrible anxiety; it causes problems, and some can even get suicidal,” he said.

He described the situation as a culture-bound condition common to a group of people with the same ideology, citing recent alleged cases of genital organ theft in the FCT, Lokoja and Nasarawa States.

“It is a delusional disorder; a medical condition that is more psychiatric,” he added.

The doctor stated, “Now, look at these cases making rounds in the media, ask these people, where is the video? Let us see the before and after; Nobody has video evidence.

“Maybe someone has KORO and, incidentally, another man or woman is just beside him/her and you just get to say, hey! My penis has disappeared. Then, immediately, people gang up against the person.

“There is also a thing where you can bully someone to accept that you stole the penis because nobody wants to die.

“So I want to believe that all of these problems that have been happening, people having penises disappearing, is an emerging case of KORO.”

There Are Medical Conditions

The medical practitioner, however, noted that other external factors could incite the case of KORO, including cold weather.

“There are things that can make the penis shrink, like the weather. If the weather is cold, usually the penis retracts a bit and appears smaller, but all of these would not cause total disappearance of the penis.

“So, I don’t think there’s any medical condition in which someone has a penis, which disappears. No, except the person was born without a penis, which we call aphallia, which is a different condition entirely.

Aphallia is an absence of the penis. It is a rare congenital condition (one that’s present from birth) where the penis fails to develop during embryonic growth. It could also be a condition where the urethral opening (urinary outlet) isn’t in the typical place.

Reacting to a case of a missing female genital organ, Ajidahun disagrees with such claims but noted that most women could have a condition of an imperforate hymen.

This is a condition where a half-moon of thin membrane surrounds typically the opening of a young girl’s vagina. The membrane extends across the area of the hymen, blocking the vaginal opening. It is easily corrected through minor surgery.

“Now, some people can even have what we call vaginal atresia. Some people can even be born without vaginas,” the doctor noted.

Vaginal Atresia is a congenital disability in which the vagina is closed or absent. The condition does not occur alone but is one of several developmental problems in a female baby.

“Some people, because of cultural practices, can have atresia, where the vagina has been sewn together. So now, I was not there (speaking on the case of the missing vagina), but what if this person has always had some form of atresia?

“And obviously, because a person has atresia, the opening will be very small. Then the person panics, and now everyone is checking it out, and they say, oh, my hand cannot go in there. So, how does that translate to someone stealing her vagina?”

Another unhealthy practice includes Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), and according to Ajidahun, “There is no medical condition where a woman that is born with vagina wakes up to say it is no more.”

The medical practitioner advised that all allegations of disappearing genital organs should be treated only by medical professionals.

“That is how you will find answers, not beating people because they stole one’s penis,” he advised.