Ritual Killings: Clergyman tasks Parents On Upbringing
2 min read
Edith CHUKU
Mixed feelings have trailed the recent arrest of four young boys in the early hours of Saturday, January 29, by men of Ogun State police command, for killing and beheading a girlfriend of their friend, for money-making ritual.
According to reports, their 18-year-old friend lured his girlfriend to a building where he and his friends killed her and cut off her head with a cutlass and knife.
The four teenage friends admitted the crime. They said after cutting off the girl’s head, they packed the remains in a sack, and dumped it in an old building.
They laid her head inside a local pot and set it on fire. It was while they were burning the deceased head for money ritual that the police arrested them. But unfortunately, it was too late, as the girl was dead.
While some members of the public blamed their action on poor upbringing, others believe that it is in fulfilment of the end time prophesy, according to the Christian faith.
There are others who simply posited that “cult boys and run girls of yesterday have become parents. They are producing venomous vipers as offspring. This is the beginning of the scourge of young ritual killers. Snakes can only give birth to more venomous snakes.”
Some also blamed the hard heartedness of these teenagers on yahoo boys and girls crave for money.
The Reverend minister of Assemblies of God Church, Rumuosunwo 1, Eneka, in Rivers State, Dr. Kingsley Eberechukwu Opara, who bemoaned the incessant involvement of children between the ages of 11 and 24, in cases of murder for money ritual, has charged parents to awake to their responsibilities.
The pastor who also admonished the church to return to God, believes that in order to curtail this menace and possibly achieve a sane society, parents would have to create more time for their children, develop a relationship, bond with their children, even as he observed that children are drifting far away from their parent, which he believes contributes to the menace that is happening in the society today.
According to him, “the bible said it all, it’s written in 1 Timothy 6:10 that for the love of money is the root of all evil, not some, but all evil, it didn’t end there, the scripture continued that while some coveted after money they erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
“They are not ready to work, they don’t want to go through process, they are not ready to learn, serve, they don’t want to earn from genuine labour; they want quick wealth.”
