CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background Of The Study

Nigeria has had significant security challenges, particularly after the country’s democratic transition in 1999. Cybercrime, auto theft, sophisticated fraud, drug smuggling, human trafficking, and the baby factory syndrome, to name a few, have all been major concerns in Nigeria in recent years. However, the belief in supernatural forces and the practice of ritual sacrifices are important aspects of Nigerian culture that have existed for decades. According to Oyewole (2015), in recent years, the proliferation of rituals among Nigerian youths has resulted in new types of hazards to lives and security in the country’s internal security administration. In Nigeria, ritual killing has become a serious security concern, and the fate of ritual killing victims is attracting increasing attention. Over 4,000 cases of ritual killing have been reported to the police in the recent decade, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NB) (2013). Murdering or detaching pieces of someone for the intention of using them as an object of ritual sacrifice in order to gain favor, popularity, power, protection, and ritual money, especially among teenagers, is known as ritual killing. In recent years, rituals among Nigerian youth have increased at an alarming rate, with the selling, stealing, and use of female underwear for money rituals becoming increasingly common. Youths in Nigeria have taken the acknowledged ritual murdering of chopping the parts of its victims with the objective of utilizing them as an object of ritual sacrifice to acquire ritual money to a new dangerous level. The new ritual evil currently afflicting our society does not necessitate the murder of its victims or the amputation of their body parts; instead, female underwear is being brutally taken at gunpoint, stolen, sold, and used for ritual money purposes. Nigerian youths are constantly looking for ways to escape the country’s hardships. This new phenomena of ritual has gotten little or no attention from academics or policymakers. In this light, the purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that lead to youths engaging in ritualism at home.

Statement Of The Problem

Ritual killing is a common occurrence in Nigerian society. Hundreds of Nigerians have died as a result of ritual murders, dubbed “head hunters” by Leo Igwe (2004). Witch doctors, juju priests, traditional medicine men and women, and/or occultists want human parts such as heads, breasts, tongues, and genital organs for questionable sacrifices or the creation of various magical sections (Igwe, 2004). Unfortunately, as a result of their constant search for ways out of their difficulties, Nigerian youngsters have become increasingly involved in ritualistic killings. As a result, they are more interested in ritual offerings that provide or improve monetary benefits. Okon (2018) argued that family-related characteristics such as background, social level, religious belief, parental upbringing, educational standing of parents, and others influence youths’ interest and involvement in ritualism. As a result, the ramifications of this uncomfortable spiritual activity can be found in society, ablaze with sorrow and insecurity. It has caused great distress and grief to many people, as well as significant difficulty to the victims’ families and relatives. As a result, the goal of this study is to look into the elements at home that influence youth ritual participation.

Objectives Of The Study

The focus of this research is on the impact of household variables on youth ritual participation. The following are the precise goals:

i. Determine the extent to which young people participate in rituals.

ii. Determine whether parents’ socioeconomic position influences their children’s ritual participation.

iii. Determine whether parental upbringing influences a child’s participation in rituals.

iii. Determine whether the family’s educational standing has an impact on the youth’s interest in ritualism.

Research Question

The following questions will lead the research:

i. To what extent do Nigerian youths participate in ritualism?

ii. Does a parent’s socioeconomic situation influence their children’s ritual participation?

iii. Does parental upbringing influence a child’s ritual participation?

iii. Does a family’s educational standing have an impact on a child’s interest in ritualism?

Significance Of The Study

The study’s findings will be useful to policymakers, Nigerian youth, and religious organizations. The study’s findings will inform policymakers about the necessity to adopt guiding principles to prevent ritual killing and to punish individuals who engage in this demonic practice. The study will also underline to the government the importance of introducing poverty alleviation programs, job possibilities, and entrepreneur support, as they will go a long way in reducing criminal behavior among jobless adolescents. More specifically, the study will emphasize the importance of intensifying moral education instruction in schools and universities, as well as encouraging teachers/lecturers who teach moral education to be role models for our kids, among other things, in order to lower the risk of youth suicide. It will also be used as a literature review by future scholars. This means that other students interested in conducting research in this field will be able to access this work as available literature that may be critically reviewed. Invariably, the study’s findings add significantly to the corpus of scholarly information on the impact of home circumstances on youth ritualism participation.

Scope Of The Study

From a broad perspective, this study investigates the circumstances at home that influence young people’s ritual participation. The study also explores the amount of youth ritualism, the relationship between parents’ financial level and their children’s ritualism, parental upbringing as a factor in children’s ritualism, and the family’s educational standing as a factor in children’s ritualism. Therefore, this study will be delimited to Bayelsa State.

Limitation Of The Study

The researcher faced some challenges in conducting this study, including time limits, money constraints, language barriers, and the attitudes of the respondents.

Furthermore, there was a component of researcher prejudice. The researcher had some biases, which may have shown up in the manner the data was gathered, the kind of people questioned or sampled, and how the data was evaluated afterward. It’s impossible to overestimate the impact of all of this on the findings and conclusions.

 

Furthermore, because the results of this study are limited to the sample population in the study area, they may not be applicable to other local governments, states, or countries around the world.

Definition Of Terms

Ritualism, often known as ritual killings, is a particularly brutal and extreme form of criminal homicide in which the slayers remove the victim’s critical organs for use in “holy” rites.

Insecurity is defined as a lack of protection from crime (being unsafe) and a lack of freedom from psychological harm (being unprotected from emotional stress resulting from a lack of assurance that an individual is accepted, has the opportunity and choices to reach his or her full potential, including freedom from fear).

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