That ritual killing of a girlfriend in Lagos

Recently, one Ifeanyi Njoku was apprehended in Lagos for murdering his girlfriend and live-in lover, Precious Okeke, 24, in an estate at Badore in the Ajah area of Lagos State, in a bid to make money. According to reports, Njoku had been instructed by a native doctor to ensure that he slept with the corpse of the lady for seven days but on the sixth day, neighbours who could no longer bear with the  offensive odour oozing out of his apartment became agitated and proceeded to inform the management of the estate of the situation. The management quickly swung into action and conducted a search on the apartment, where it discovered Okeke’s decomposing body. Njoku was then apprehended and taken to the Langbasa Police Station.

Truly, the rate of ritual killings in the country is unbelievably high. Like many other lazy and criminally minded young people, Njoku, a 28-year-old bachelor, wanted to be rich at all costs and did not give a hoot if his girlfriend or anyone else died in the process. He embarked on a sadistic mission without giving serious thought to the potential implications. He apparently wanted wealth and fame without hard labour, and has now caused entire families, including his own, everlasting anguish by his sheer callousness. It is a fact that a considerable percentage of the country’s citizens, especially the youths, are hooked on wild, get-rich-quick schemes, caring little about the legitimacy of those schemes. From yahoo-yahoo swindles to false business claims, Nigeria’s young generation is doing everything it can to, in its own words, ‘blow.’ These youths are not hiding the intention to, again in their own words, chill with the big boys. There are so many wild, fraudulent schemes on the social media promising quick and easy money and the perpetrators do not care if those schemes ruin lives. Yet, for the vast majority of people, becoming rich is a slow, gradual and even painful process. Societies all over the world don’t have too many rich people: people have to make up their minds if they want to become rich legitimately or through crooked means. Ifeanyi Njoku chose the latter option and he will have his day in court. He must be given his just recompense.

The country is fast sliding into a moral abyss. It is therefore incumbent on key social formations, including the family and religious institutions, to rise to the occasion and arrest the slide. On its part, the government must ensure that the means to live within legitimate bounds are fairly available to the people. That is the way to reduce crime and criminality. For a long time, the government has not lived up to its billing: it has been, as we said in previous editorials, nothing more than a superstructure erected on the people’s pain. Social indices indict the government: unemployment figures are frightening and production is at subsistence levels. Worse still, there is no evidence that the government is concerned about changing the situation. On the contrary, it has been spending generously on questionable projects, often without parliamentary approval, as in the case of the $1 million donation to Afghanistan. Politicians who have been arrested and jailed on charges of corruption are forgiven and unleashed afresh on the society.  It cannot be said in good conscience that there is social justice behind governmental action at any level.

On the side of the people, they are merely conducting themselves as anarchy would suggest, having seen no true leadership from the government. The saying that: when there is no hierarchy, anarchy subsists holds true. We have lost count of the number of times when the government was called upon to revitalise the national orientation agencies and make them deliver the message of social morality and progress once again. Yet there is no gainsaying the fact that they have crucial roles to play in the country’s moral rearmament. It is time to revive the previously cherished social values of honesty and hard work. That is how the country can trace its way back to sanity.