Olayomi Koiki
ILÉ-IFẸ̀ – Yoruba elders under the aegis of Kaaro Oojiire ÌmÍ Oodua Foundation (KOOOF) on yesterday, expressed worry over the rising cases of ritual killing and human body parts harvesting in the south-western region of Nigeria.
The Yoruba elders, in a statement by their Vice President/Diaspora Counsel, Gbenga Adewusi, wondered how cases of human decapitation and harvesting of human bodies have now become a daily occurrence.
Adewusi said: “The recurrence of the activities of those involved in the human ritual in the Southwest is indeed a shameful episode that should no longer be ignored and or swept under the carpet by all stakeholders in Yoruba land.
“What makes the news alarming is the regularity of the sordid and inhuman activities, and the various types of people involved – from Muslim imams to Christian pastors, from teenagers to old and young men and women.
“If urgent actions are not taken it will ultimately affect the peace, tranquillity, progress, and development of the Southwest because no investor wants to invest in an area where citizens are regularly and gruesomely murdered to harvest their body parts.
“The current evidence gleaned from news reports indicate that the majority of those caught by the security services have been Muslim Alfas and Christian pastors. However, this simple fact is not an excuse to exonerate the Yoruba people from the menace of ritual killing because all those caught by the authorities were mostly sons and daughters of the Southwest soil.”
The group insisted that something urgent needed to be done to bring the scourge to a halt.
“We are all aware that there is a false narrative about ritual killing in the Southwest. The false narrative is that ritual killing is practised by the traditional Yoruba religious believers. This false perception is neither supported with available evidence nor is far separated from the truth,” the Yoruba elders said.
“We, members of KOOOF boldly state that there is no money ritual at all. Those engaged in ritual killings for money are not practising the authentic Yoruba tradition.”
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