A real life Sweeney Todd situation?

A news story came to my attention this morning about a restaurant in Nigeria that has been accused of serving human flesh to its customers. Naturally, the first connection that came to my mind was the musical Sweeney Todd, the story of the barber who sold meat pies made from the remains of his victims. Secondly, I started thinking back on tidbits shared with me by some of my friends from Somalia, Ethiopia, Malawi and yes, Nigeria. When I had asked about diet in Africa, I had been told that meat was a rarity and that the majority of the diet was plant and grain based. So is a story like this merely shocking because of it’s reference to human cannibalism? Or is it more shocking because it references a deeper problem of availability of fresh meat? In the story below, a priest is shocked not only that he consumed human meat, but at the price in which he did so. Sometimes the surface story is only a tip off to a larger, more problematic story that we are not always interested in hearing the details of, without the added sensationalism that has been added here. The original story is included below for your consideration. 

"A restaurant in the Nigerian state of Anambra has been shut down after the authorities reportedly found it has been selling dishes made of human meat. The police recovered at least two fresh human heads when they arrested 11 people from the restaurant including the owner, six women and four men, following a tip-off. The blood-soaked heads were found wrapped in cellophane sheets. Officials have also seized two AK-47 rifles, other weapons, dozens of rounds of ammunitions and several mobile phones during the raid.

“Each time I came to market, because the hotel is very close to the market, I always noticed funny movements in and out of the hotel; dirty people with dirty characters always come into the hotel. So, I was not surprised when the police made this discovery in the early hours of yesterday,” a local resident told the Osun Defender. A pastor, who was shocked to know that what he had eaten was human meat, complained to the police.“I went to the hotel early this year, after eating, I was told that a lump of meat was being sold at N700 (£2.5), I was surprised. So I did not know it was human meat that I ate at such expensive price,” the unidentified pastor said. Reports of cannibalism sometimes emerge in Nigeria, but this is the first time a restaurant has been booked for selling human meat dishes."

Source: HTTP://GRAPHIC.COM.GH/INTERNATIONAL/AFRICA/17204-NIGERIA-RESTAURANT-SHUT-DOWN-FOR-SERVING-HUMAN-MEAT.HTML