The House of Representatives, on Wednesday, declared a state of emergency on the alarming rate of ritual killings across the country.
The lawmakers also charged the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Usman Baba Alkali, to urgently stem the alarming increase in the rate of ritual killings in the society.
They also asked the National Orientation Agency, stakeholders and the media to initiate a campaign towards changing the orientation of citizens for a better society.
The call by the lawmakers followed a motion of urgent public importance by the Deputy Minority Leader in the house, Hon. Toby Okechukwu, during the plenary on Wednesday.
In his motion, Okechukwu stated that the incidents of ritual killings had become alarming in parts of the country and should be urgently stopped.
The lawmaker lamented the upsurge of reported cases of ritual killings with increasing cases of abductions and missing persons in different parts of the country.
He condemned the rampant incidents of rape of young girls and women, the killings, and the removal of sensitive body parts of unsuspecting victims for ritual purposes.
The lawmaker also raised the alarm that the Red Cross Society had in 2017 reported that a total of 10,480 missing persons were reported in Nigeria.
He said, “On January 22, three teenage suspects and a 21-year-old reportedly killed one Sofiat Kehinde and severed her head and burnt it in a local pot in Abeokuta, Ogun State.
“The police command in Ogun on February 7, reported that one of the suspects confessed that he learned the act of ritual killing from a video he watched on Facebook”.
Okechukwu added that the sudden death of five- year-old school girl, Hanifa attracted national outrage and condemnation considering the age of the suspected killers.
He stated that those behind the wicked acts often use the social media as a tool to advertise their evil actions.
The lawmaker recalled the gruesome murder of Miss Iniobong Umoren, a young graduate in her 20s; who in search of a job was lured to a particular location in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State for a job interview, only to be murdered.
He further cited the gruesome killings and activities of Badoo Boys in Lagos State, explaining, “Ritual killing has become a predominant theme in most home-made movies, which if not checked, will make our younger ones to begin to view it as an acceptable norm.”
The lawmakers urged the Executive Director, National Film and Video Censors Board to uphold the mandate of the agency as the clearing house for all movies produced in the country.
