Federal Government has announced its plan to launch a national sensitization campaign against the growing menace of money rituals, which has already claimed many lives, especially of women and girls, in the country.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai
Mohammed, disclosed this when he visited the corporate headquarters of the
Media Trust Limited, owners of Daily Trust group of newspapers and Trust
Television in Abuja on Monday.
He said said the Federal
government, through the National Orientation Agency (NOA) is partnering with
religious and traditional bodies as well as NGOs to champion behavioural and
attitudinal changes, especially in the youth, some of whom, he said, are
influenced by the get-rich-quick syndrome
“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.
”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.
Alhaji Mohammed enjoined media
houses “to join in the campaign against the scourge”
“I implore the
Daily Trust, and indeed all media organizations, to join the campaign against
the scourge,” he said
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.
The Minister said the fact that
some ritual killers said they learned the money-making tricks from some social
media platforms has further given credence to the Federal Government’s campaign
to regulate the social media.
He also said that some Nollywood movie contents promote money
ritual killings, announcing 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 discard money ritual content in their movies.
