The House of Representatives has made an urgent appeal to Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, to take swift action in addressing the alarming trend of young girls being killed for ritual purposes. This appeal came following the adoption of a motion presented by Awaji-Inombek Abiante, the representative of Adoni/Opobo/Nkoro Federal Constituency in Rivers State.
In his presentation, Abiante emphasized that the recent wave of killings, particularly of young girls, including undergraduates, by individuals claiming to be boyfriends for ritualistic reasons, is a disturbing and unacceptable trend that must be halted. He pointed to a recent tragic incident, such as the murder of Justina Otuene, a 20-year-old university student in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Port Harcourt, by Damian Okoligwe, a fellow student at the same university.
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.”