Lawmakers call on IGP to end ritual killings of young girls

The House of Representatives has appealed to the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, to, as a matter of urgency, exert effort in addressing the spate of killing of young girls for ritual purposes.

The appeal was sequel to the adoption of a motion on a matter of urgent public importance moved by the lawmaker representing Adoni/Opobo/Nkoro Federal Constituency, Rivers State, Awaji-Inombek Abiante.

In his lead debate, Abiante stated that recent wave of killing of young girls, especially undergraduates by supposed boyfriends for ritual purposes remains an ugly trend that should be stopped.

He made reference to the recent murder of Justina Otuene, a 20-year-old undergraduate in the Department of Biochemistry, University of Port Harcourt, by Damian Okoligwe of the same university.

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Abiante also narrated the murder of Augusta Osedion, “a final year student of Lead City University in July 2023 by her boyfriend, Benjamin Best, who goes by the nickname Killaboi in Lagos; the murder of Miss Oghenefejiro Ochuko, a final year student of Ambrose Alli University, who was equally killed in August 2023 by her boyfriend; Victor Ochonogor in Benin and several other unreported cases.

“These killings take similar patterns of dismembering the bodies of the victims whereby their vital organs are removed and that the perpetrators of these heinous crimes are young boys who might not be working alone but with strong cartels.”

The Hosue, hence, also called on Egbetokun “to set up a crack team to conduct a holistic investigation with the sole aim of unmasking the cartels behind these killings and bring them to justice.”

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