Iwo monarch, Oba Abdulrasheed Adewale Akanbi, has advocated the death penalty on ritual killers.
Oba Akanbi, who was speaking recently at Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos, during the 27th annual Award/Lecture series of the Crime Reporters Association of Nigeria ( CRAN) with the theme: proliferation of arms, a threat to democracy, said it was shameful and laughable that in this century, people still believe in ritual killing.
” When you open the pages of the Newspapers or the social media , you must see one story or more, talking about mutilated bodies discovered in certain places for money-making rituals or other ritual purposes . Some of the rituals are done by advance fee fraudsters ( Yahoo plus), some are done by native doctors or some traditional rulers who use human blood for sacrifice. Why should a traditional ruler be buried with human beings . Why must a native doctor use human parts to do charms for another person?
” This is barbaric and shameful. The international community is watching us and the things they read on the internet are affecting us negatively. I travel all over the world and during interactions with people, they mock us for being ritualists. The Federal Government should look into the matter seriously and bring any person associated with ritual killing to book. I am, therefore, advocating death penalty on ritual killers . The moment two persons have been executed for ritual murder, the killings will stop. Recall when the FG executed two drug dealers , others stopped the illicit trade . Ritual killing is worse than armed robbery and kidnapping . Let whoever that is responsible for ritual killing ,face the same punishment murderers and armed robbers face. The government should kill ritual killers by hanging .
” I want to advise that there are some traditions that must be abolished. For instance, we don’t need to worship some idols left behind by our parents. We should keep some of those idols in our museum. We don’t have to worship idol with human blood. This is a technology-driven economy, let’s use our Gods’ given talent to do good things. We can borrow from the Chinese who had nothing but made use of their talents and started developing and manufacturing things. Today, China can compete with favorably with any developed country in the world. Africans should learn from the Chinese.
” We should be greater than our parents. Our forefathers have tried their best, but we can’t be static, we should move forward in science and technology. We should be serious, but the government must look into the area of infrastructure and creating an enabling environment for the people to thrive. The government should build more schools than in prison and improve its’ budget in education.
” I am also pleading with the governors to always sign death warrants whenever any criminal is found guilty and sentenced to death for kidnapping, armed robbery, and ritual killings.
” I also want the government to look into the funding of our security agencies ,especially the Army and the Police. If our security agencies are not well funded ,they would not work as they should. We know that the government cannot do it alone . We need to institute security trust fund where the money would be raised to fund security agencies,especially the police .
Our police are doing well and winning Laurel overseas ,but do not perform well here in Nigeria . This will tell you that something is wrong with our police . The government should do something drastic on the issue of funding our security agencies.
” I equally want to advise the youths to know that money does not come through rituals. The native doctors who are doing money rituals for you are deceiving you people . If money-making rituals are working ,why did the native doctors not make money for themselves .I want to advise you to a father that there is nothing like money-making rituals . All you need is to discover your God’s given talent and the rest is history . Work hard and you will make it . Stop fraud because you are robbing people and stealing is not condoned by any tradition ,culture or religion. There are some people that have committed suicide after being swindled by advance fee fraudsters. Let us begin to think positively .”
