ADDRESSING THE WAVE OF RITUAL KILLINGS

Security agencies should go after the criminals

In two separate incidents, the Kwara State Police Commissioner, Adekimi Ojo, last week confirmed the arrest of four suspects over missing human parts. In the first incident, two suspects were arrested over the alleged exhumation of graves and removal of human heads from buried bodies at a cemetery in Omupo, Ifelodun local government area of the state. In the second incident in Ilorin, the state capital, the suspects were found in possession of human hands for alleged money-making rituals. It is the latest in the bizarre cases in which ritual killing has become a business among a growing number of people who believe money could be harvested from body parts and organs. The concern is that there have been numerous such cases with nothing ever heard about what happened to the suspects arrested by the police.

Driven largely by ignorance and poverty, the bizarre practice of killing for rituals has become commonplace in Nigeria. So rampant is the crime that in many large cosmopolitan cities like Lagos, Ibadan, Enugu and Port Harcourt, there is a growing group of desperadoes murdering innocent people, particularly women, children and sometimes the physically challenged, for ritual purposes. These murderers, sometimes called headhunters, go to any extent in search of body parts-particularly the head and sexual organs, for money-making rituals. Indeed, the incidence of ritual killings is said to account for a large number of missing people in the country.

To compound the challenge, many young people, including students of tertiary institutions in the country, are now involved in these ritual killings in what is called ‘Yahoo Plus’. In recent years, dozens of unsuspecting girls have met their untimely deaths in the hands of these killers who often lure them with enticing promises. Even though the belief lacks common sense, perpetrators indulge in these bestial acts for the purpose of making “instant wealth” or what some have aptly dubbed “blood money”. According to the research once conducted by an NGO, the West African Network for Peace Building, Nigeria recorded 185 ritual-related deaths between 2021 and 2022. Among the victims of those bestial killings were 43 women, and 30 children in 80 cases across 20 states.

Meanwhile, nobody has been able to prove that these sacrifices, done at the instruction of some crafty traditional medicine practitioners and witch doctors, can actually catapult people from penury into instant wealth. At least, for now, there is no single person that can be named to have become rich because of human sacrifices, except the characters in some Nollywood movies. So, to that extent, ritual killing remains largely a crime driven by ignorance and poverty. But in a nation where superstition reigns, the orgy of violence to get these assorted body parts remains unabated.

However, what is very clear is that this is a law-and-order failure. Indeed, the increasing cases of abduction and killing of innocent men, women and children is a poignant reminder that the police and the other security agencies have not sent a forceful message on what awaits the perpetrators of such a most heinous crime. The largely indifferent treatment to those caught has more or less encouraged the commitment of more crime. This is therefore an issue that the relevant authorities have to deal with quickly. When suspects are arrested for this crime, they must be brought to court and diligently prosecuted. There is also an urgent need for enlightenment campaigns to put a lie to the erroneous belief that money can grow out of human body parts. It is time we put an end to these barbaric killings.