From Aidoghie Paulinus, Abuja
The Federal Government has said it will soon launch a national sensitisation campaign against the growing scourge of money rituals in the country.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who made the disclosure during a working visit to the corporate headquarters of Media Trust Limited, Owners of Daily Trust Group of Newspapers and Trust Television in Abuja, noted that the situation has already claimed many lives, especially of women and girls, in the country.
“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 of 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,” Mohammed said.
Mohammed also said the National Orientation Agency (NOA) is already partnering with religious and traditional organisations 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 disclosed 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.
Mohammed, who also called on the media to lend its strong voice to the efforts to stamp out the growing menace of ritual killings, hailed the newspaper that has already written an editorial against the menace.
“I implore the Daily Trust, and indeed all media organisations, to join the campaign against the scourge,” Mohammed also said.
Mohammed further 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.