RITUAL KILLINGS BUSINESS IN NIGERIA: A CURSE ABOUT TO EXPLODE

The number of missing persons in Lagos State alone runs into hundreds weekly. Police stations are daily inundated with reports of missing persons. Ninety five percent of such persons are never found. The case is the same in different parts of the country. Persons miss daily and are never found. The victims are mostly able bodied men and women who had the misfortune of entering public transport system especially commuter buses and taxis. The ritual killings business is very old in Nigeria. People apprehend fellows, kill them and use certain parts for human sacrifices. There is a superstitious belief among these vampires that certain human parts like eyes, breast, private part etc serve some human advancement purposes. They believe that the use of human beings for rituals confers some political, economic and security advantages.

Recently, I met a man looking obviously disturbed and upon inquiry I was told that the man was taken by a friend to a juju man in one of the outskirts of Abuja in search of political turn around. The Juju man requested the head of a full grown adult and the deal is done. This man thought the juju man was kidding until he was promised, for a fee of five hundred thousand naira (N500,000), to be taken to a place outside Abuja where he could make a selection from the array of captives. The obviously shocked banker turned politician had to run to one of the fire sending churches to get delivered from both shock and evil contamination. This obviously misled and repented Nigerian had the conscience to reject the exchange of human life for political favor.

The ritual business in Nigeria is a thriving business. A human head with all the condiments is sold for between N200, 000 to N500, 000 ($1,200-$2,000). In certain cases, the captives are paraded before the beneficiaries for selection, while at times the beneficiaries send couriers to do the selection on their behalf, after which the person is slaughtered.

These ritualists often snatch their victims from public transport systems. Unsuspecting victims enters taxis or buses , they get charmed in some instances and taken to unknown destinations. By the time they open their eyes and the charm are fizzled off they find themselves in thick forests, mountainous places, remote places or solitary buildings usually apart from the others near a bush. The victims are stripped, tied and left to wait their turn. Some at such times turn to wailings, shouting and prayers for God to intervene.

In the past five years I have come across three persons who escaped from their hands through divine intervention. One is a pastor's wife and school teacher, the other is Alaba based business man while the other is a student awaiting JAMB result. The businessman claimed that an angel appeared in the forest in Lagos outskirts and freed him from the captors and led him to a place where he could find his way. The pastor's wife and the young lady Jambite claimed that the leader of the ritualists ordered that they be released before their blood spoils the rest of their sacrifice for them. In 2009 in Living Faith Church Durumi Abuja, a lady worker in the church gave testimony of how she was kidnapped alongside other commuters bound for Abuja from Kaduna in a taxi and taken to unknown destination. When she realized herself the lady made a call to her Bishops, Abioye before her phone was seized. The lady was the only one they released hours later, tied her eyes and dumped her somewhere around Papei settlement in Abuja.

The patrons of ritual business are mostly politicians, business men and recently senior civil servants .Their headquarters is Lagos, Kano, Benin, Aba and Ibadan however they operate in every state now. In 2006 I got into a conversation with an aide of a former Governor in the South East who quietly absconded from duty. The reason is that he came to the government house very early in the morning to meet his colleagues cleaning up blood and was told as an insider that someone has just been sacrificed for the security of the state chief executive. He pretended to hail the exercise until his family members advised him to gradually find something else to do.

Quite recently, I saw another aide of one of the northern governors accused of sponsoring Boko Haram and he told me that he is gradually pulling out of the system.Upon inquiry I was told that the first lady of the state took delivery of a baby some years ago. Later he asked her madam what happened to that robust baby and the madam told him in gleeful confidence that the baby was pounded for security – to prevent others from taking her position.

The Nigerian polity has been silent on this wickedness. The security agencies have not organized to bust those behind the ritual business. This is obviously due to he high profile patrons of the business who usually uses one phone call to kill off any attempted investigations. Therefore, thousands of Nigerians are left at the expense of these predators that have no respect for the sanctity of human blood.

A situation whereby security agencies will leave the task of protecting lives to God alone while God have given them the tools to do so is very worrisome. This means that for every twenty captive, nineteen are killed while the hand of God delivers one who either has certain level of divine protection, or has prayerfully interceding benefactors. This is bad record. These slaughtered Nigerians might as well be the Moses, Elijah and Messiah of this generation. The Churches should corporately address his wickedness and curse the root of ritualism and the beneficiaries of such wickedness the way they address the issue of prosperity. Failure to do so the blood of the innocent will be visited on the entire nation who carried on business as usual while their fellow citizens are turned to pepper soup.

Obinna Akukwe
Financial/IT consultant