The House of Representatives has called on the Federal Government to, as a matter of urgency, declare national emergency on ritual killings in the country.

 

The House also called on the National Orientation Agency, NOA, parents, heads of schools, religious leaders and the media to undertake a campaign to change the negative narratives bedeviling the society.

 

The resolution, among others, were necessitated by a motion entitled: “Need to curb the rising trend of ritual killings in Nigeria”, sponsored by the Deputy Minority leader of the House, Honourable Toby Okechukwu during matters of urgent public importance at the plenary yesterday.

 

Raising the motion, Honourable Okechukwu noted that incidents of ritual killing have assumed an alarming rate in Nigeria in recent times, with increasing cases of abduction and missing persons in different parts of the country, which in most cases, the culprits also rape, maim, kill and harvest sensitive body parts of the victims for ritual.

 

Citing instances, the lawmaker noted that the Red Cross Society in 2017 reported ten thousand four hundred and eighty cases of missing persons in Nigeria, adding that on twenty-second January, 2022, three teenage suspects and a twenty-year-old reportedly killed one Sofiat Kehinde and had her head severed and burnt in a local pot in Abeokuta, Ogun State, and one of them later confessed that he learned the act of ritual killing from a video he watched on Facebook.

 

He explained that the death of Sofiat has attracted national outrage and condemnation considering the ages of her killers, and charged relevant agencies parents, heads of schools, religious leaders and the media step up actions to address the menace.