Constitute crack team to unmask cartel behind ritual killings – House to IGP

The House of Representatives has directed the Inspector General of Police to set up a crack team to conduct a holistic investigation with the sole aim of unmasking the cartels behind ritual killings and bringing them to justice.

The decision of the House was sequel to the adoption of an urgent public importance moved under Order 8 Rule 4 moved at the plenary on Wednesday by Awaji-Inombek Abiante.

Presenting the motion, the lawmaker decried the recent wave and sustained killings of young girls, mostly undergraduates by their supposed boyfriends for ritual purposes.

Abiante stressed the need to protect young girls and indeed every Nigerian as enshrined in section 14(2)(b) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended).

He recalled the murder of Augusta Osedion, a final year student of Leads City University in July 2023 by her boyfriend, Benjamin Best, nicknamed killaboi in Lagos and the murder of Miss Oghenefejiro Ochuko, a final year student of Ambrose Ali University who was equally killed in August, 2023 by her boyfriend, Victor Ochonogor in Benin and several other unreported cases.

The lawmaker expressed dismay at the recent murder of 20 years old Miss Justina Otuene, an undergraduate student of the Department of Biochemistry, University of Port Harcourt by Damian Okoligwe who is also an undergraduate student of the same university last week.

He said these killings have almost become a daily occurrence with several other reported cases of missing females with their whereabouts still unknown.

Abiante added that the perpetrators of these heinous crimes are young boys who might not be working alone but with strong cartels while lamenting that young girls have become an endangered species.

The lawmaker further expresses worry that few of the reported missing victims are often found dead without traces of the perpetrators.

Abiante stressed that the killings take similar patterns of dismembering the bodies of the victims and their vital organs removed.

The House, therefore, called on “the Inspector General of police to set up a crack team to conduct a holistic investigation with the sole aim of unmasking the cartels behind these killings and bringing them to justice.”