It is organ harvesting not ritual killings – UN body speaks on strange deaths in Nigeria

Nigerians have been alerted to the numerous cases of strange killings, allegedly being carried out by fraudsters known locally as “Yahoo-Yahoo” boys.

It is almost becoming an epidemic, with ramifications for ritual purposes.

Reports have now hinted that it is actually a problem of organ harvesting, being undertaken by syndicates that specialise in the horrific business.

Julie Okah-Donli, who heads the Board of Trustees of the United Nations Voluntary Trust Funds for Victims of Trafficking and Executive Chairman of Roost Foundation, raised the alarm on this scourge.

She attributed the new phenomenon to the increased number of people in the business of buying and selling of organs.

She spoke with reporters in Abuja at the one-year anniversary of the foundation and her declaration of senatorial ambition.

She dismissed the contention by the public that victims found with missing organs were used for ritual activities, while pleading with President Muhammadu Buhari to make governors yet to domesticate and enforce the child’s right act do so, in order for Nigeria to eliminate child abuse and molestation even through an Executive Order.

Bemoaning as unfortunate that some states had yet to domesticate the Act despite the growing number of cases of child abuse, molestation and a lot more, she said that forcing state governments to domesticate the act would resolve the issue of reluctance on their part.

She said: “Everyone needs to ensure that the Child’s Rights Act is domesticated, I don’t see any reason why anyone would not want to protect the rights of a child.

“I will be advocating going forward that states must be made to; it is no longer an option to domesticate and enforce the child’s right and VAPP act; states could be made to through (in form of) an executive order; that might be the only way to go for cases where people think they don’t have to do it.

“I am not sure if it is a new development but it’s something that has been going on for a while; young children for Labour exploitation are way-billed and sent ahead in buses, without anyone in order not to raise suspicion and the receiver will be at the motor parks to receive them just like you waybill goods and properties.

“People know what’s going on; the transporters have an idea, when they see children like this being sent off in vehicles; usually they are packed up in vehicles, which should raise the alarm that something is not right.

“Then we see a lot of cases that people refer to as ritual murders, which in my opinion are cases of organ harvesting.

“There is a lot of organ harvesting going on now. I believe that these guys are into the business of buying and selling organs; so we need to raise a lot of awareness, which is what we are doing in Roost foundation now.

“We have started raising a lot of awareness on organ harvesting because people are very ignorant about it.”

Abimbola Adewumi, Team Leads, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) on trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants portfolio, while sharing her views, suggested that Federal Government needed to create specialised courts at the federal level to handle cases of trafficking and sexual violence.

She added:  “One of the things we think that slows down our prosecution is the fact that we don’t have specialised judges that sit on Trafficking in-person cases (TIP), the ones we gave a seat on multiple cases, with TIP cases the victims are humans and as witnesses in court may change their minds tomorrow so ones we have all the evidence, the faster the court processes it, the better for us all.”