At least some 45 youths from various families in Ilorin, Kwara state, have been murdered in the last 17 months, according to the National President of Ilorin Emirate Descendants Progressive Union (lEDPU), Ambassador Sheikh Uthnan-AbdulAzeez.
Uthnan-AbdulAzeez who gave the figure in Ilorin at an interactive session organised by the Union with Islamic clerics and Chief Imams of various mosques in the Ilorin emirate and beyond, described the killing by some suspected cult members as alarming and which needed to be addressed.
The police in Kwara state paraded last week the son of a former spokesman of the command, Alhaji Woru Mohammed for alleged murder and membership of Aiye confraternity cult group.
Commissioner of police, Aminu Pai Saleh, also paraded an alleged notorious cultist, Abolaji Safti Ojulari, male of Kankatu area of Ilorin metropolis, saying that the suspect alongside 13 of his accomplices had killed 11 people, including a notorious hoodlum Bayo Ajia, between 2016 and 2018.
The interactive session was aimed at reminding the Islamic Clerics to centre their sermons during Ramadan and beyond on eradication of social vices in Ilorin emirate as the IEDPU boss urged Islamic clerics in the state to complement the effort of eradicating cultism and other vices in the state through their sermons.
He lamented that several residents of the Ilorin emirate and beyond were living in perpetual fear of insecurity of their lives and property and frowned at what he described as alarming rate of sales and dealing with human parts in various parts of the state. He charged the clerics to assist in the eradication of the menace.
“It saddens the Union that several youths in Ilorin are now smoking Indian hemp including some Islamic clerics”, he said and advised the Islamic clerics to shun rivalry among themselves and see themselves as one indivisible entity with common goal to eradicate social problems and insecurity in the state.
In his remarks, Chief Imam of Radio Kwara Ilorin, Uztas Olayiwola Abdulsalam, urged his colleagues to always be conscious of what they write and utter during sermons to ensure a peaceful society.
.new telegraph
