Buhari Calls For ‘Strictest’ Punishments For Ritual Killers, Attacks on Police in Nigeria

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has called for the strictest punishments to be meted on ritual killers and those responsible for attacks on police officers and various stations across the country.

The latest incidents of ritual killings and deadly attacks against on-duty policemen and ethnic minorities in Enugu, Imo, Abia, Zamfara, and Ogun States has caused some level of unease across the nation.

The President denounced the nefarious activities saying “I condemn these dastardly acts of violence and pray for the souls of the departed,” said the President, adding that the courts of the land must apply “the strictest of punishment under our laws to the perpetrators of these horrific crimes.”

In a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu said incidents of ritual killings, hate crimes, and killing of law enforcement officers are aberrations.

Expressing the sympathy of the nation to families of all the victims, President Buhari urged law enforcement agencies, state governments, local authorities, community, and religious leaders to take all lawful actions to prevent further incidents of this nature and to put in place measures against the normalization of these primitive acts, hate crimes and acts of terror.

President Buhari said that killings in the name of rituals, political agitation, and tribal hatred are not in keeping with the tenets of our religions and of the civilized and enlightened cultures we are all claiming to be, adding that “no person has the right to take the law in his or her own hands.”

Furthermore, the President re-emphasized the need for all Nigerians to be their brother’s keeper and should see an attack, be it verbal or physical on anyone, as an attack on the very essence that keeps us as a nation.

Meanwhile, President Buhari has commended the government of Abia State for the actions it has so far taken on the incident a few days ago against traders at the New Cattle Market, in Ukwa Local Government Area of the state and appealed for calm.

He also expressed his sympathies to the families of those killed and suffered the loss of property following the attacks.