Ritual Killings: Govt urged to check activities of churches, clerics

The federal government has been urged to come up with policies to checkmate the activities of churches and pastors in the states.

The Treasurer of Action Democratic Party (ADP) Cross River State chapter, Comrade Offiong Okon, told the Daily Times on phone while reacting to persistent ritual killings of innocent children in the country and lamented the attitude of church leaders including pastors.

According to him, “Churches should not operate in secrecy as this action denied government and some people opportunity to know what the pastors are doing within the four walls of the church.

“Before a church is established, government should investigate those behind it and the church itself should be investigated seriously before license is granted as many of the church leaders and founders are ritualists acting in the guise of pastors.”

“Government should investigate the so called Pastors and checkmate their activities because what they did under the cover of being a Church, when look at critically, it call for question” Comrade Okon fumed adding that if government is bent on stopping ritual killing of innocent Nigerians, a committee should be set up to investigate the activities of men of God.

“Let us know what really going on there, what they are doing behind the walls of the Churches. Members ought to know what they are doing inside. You cannot operate in secret all the time, killing innocence Nigerians there. The way Christians are doing the worship of God calls for questions, it’s alarming and out of the doctrine of God.”

“When God was on earth, he did not do what we have seen today, no human killing, no human sacrifice, how can we be scarifying human being for miracles and money?, it is very disturbing and sad” and called for the reduction of number of Churches in the Country and the states.

“Churches are too many, what government did in the banking sectors should apply to churches. They should be merged too. Let us reduce the number of our Churches and see if the crime rates will not reduce, I assured you. Look at our banking sector; have you not seen sanity there?”

“Let government do same, just for a trial. Federal, State and Local Government should checkmate excesses of these people called Pastors and Churches as well as their founders or leaders in the Country with a view to preventing ritual killings and kidnapping.”

Condemning the incident that occurred on Thursday over the killing of innocent baby, he said it was very sad and a bad signal for Christians and Pastors. And considering what happened in Port Harcourt where a suspect was allowed to escape he advice the security agent to be diligent in their duties to avoid what happened.

“This means that we have no security in this country. Police should look at what happened in River State and take it as a serious matter and work toward preventing it re-occurrence. They should not allow any suspect in their custody to escape as this send a bad signal.”

“If it continues, it would mean the confident people had in Police would be eluded and going by the constitution, Police are to protect life and property of Nigerians” and called on Police not to treat ritual killings with light action, “I regretted With what happened on Thursday, people are not safe, how can a Pastor recruit people to go round and kidnap people for him to do miracles, it’s sad.”