By Iliya Kure
Nigeria says it embark on national enlightenment initiative against the upward scourge of money ritual acts, already claiming lives of its citizens, especially women and girls.
“Gentlemen, our visit today is coming at a time of great concern across the country over the rising cases of ritual murders by unscrupulous people, most of them very young, who are seeking to get rich at all cost. We have therefore decided to use this opportunity to begin the process of raising national awareness on this scourge,” Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said on Monday in Abuja when he paid a visit to the corporate headquarters of the Media Trust Limited, owners of Daily Trust group of newspapers and Trust Television.
”For those who may still be in doubt, ritual killings have assumed a worrisome dimension in recent years. According to an NGO, Foundation for Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta (PIND), 150 women and girls were killed for ritual purposes between January 2018 and December 2021,” he said, while also citing recent ritual killings in other parts of the country.
The Minister said the National Orientation Agency (NOA) is already partnering with religious and traditional organizations as well as NGOs to forge behavioural change, especially among the youth, some of whom, he said, are afflicted by the get-rich-quick syndrome.
He also announced that he has directed the National Film and Video Censors Board, the regulatory body for films and videos in the country, to take the issue of ritual killings into consideration while censoring and classifying films and videos, in addition to engaging with stakeholders in the industry to express the concerns of the government and Nigerians on the need for Nollywood producers to eschew money ritual content in their movies.
While calling on the media to lend its strong voice to the efforts to stamp out the growing menace of ritual killings, the Minister commended a newspaper that has already written an editorial against the menace.
“I implore the Daily Trust, and indeed all media organizations, to join the campaign against the scourge,” he said
Mr Mohammed said the fact that some ritual killers said they learned the money-making tricks from some social media platforms has further given a fillip to the Federal Government’s campaign to rid social media of unwholesome content.