By Kelechi Esogwa-Amadi
It appears that ritualists are now on rampage in Rivers State. This is because, in recent times, cases of missing children and adults seem to be rising.
TPCN gathered that between December 2020 and May 2021, the media have been inundated with news of missing people, kidnapped people or mysterious deaths linked to ritualists.
It was learnt that the patronage of ritualists by some politicians, native doctors, pastors and human parts dealers is responsible for the rising incidents of ritual killing in the state.
According to sources, some of the politicians, native doctors, pastors and top businessmen use human parts for charms while those marketing them sometimes export certain internal human organs to some foreign countries where they’re bought by medical doctors for transplant.
TPCN investigations revealed that such live human organs as the liver, kidney, lungs, heart and eyes are in high demand in countries like India, Malaysia, the Philippines, China and Thailand, among others.
To meet up with the increasing demand for human parts, the ritualists, TPCN learnt, now extend their dragnet to churches, mosques and public schools where they feel they can easily get children and adolescents.
According to investigation, the ritualists have agents who go to churches pretending to be true worshippers on Sundays but usually refuse to come out during altar calls for visitors and those giving their lives to Christ to avoid their faces being marked. But at the end of the service, they mix up with the crowd and may, in the process, touch and hypnotise any child that is close to them, whisking him or her away before the parents or whoever came with that knows what is happening.
TPCN also gathered that the agents, while mixing up with the crowd after church service, chart up any girl that is close to them and because they usually dress well and look rich, most girls, including female members of such churches, easily fall for them.
“Some of the girls, from that church premises, follow them to eateries, happy that they have caught big fishes as boyfriends. From going to eateries, they commit themselves to a relationship, not knowing that they have fallen into the hands of ritual agents,” a source told TPCN yesterday.
Checks also revealed that ritualists these days use flashy cars to deceive their victims by offering to give them free lifts or ask them for directions on the road.
A source warned parents, church leaders and their security officials as well as mosques and public schools’ leaders to be more vigilant to avoid being taken unawares.
