The Nigerian Police Force has linked many cases of missing young women to ritual practices, with a growing connection to the rising hookup culture in the country.

The Public Relations Officer of the Ogun State Command, Omolola Odutola, revealed this on Wednesday when she was featured on Channels Television’s Morning Brief.

During the discussion on “Hookup Culture: Impact on Youth Values and Relationships,” Odutola revealed that young women aged 20 to 32 are the most affected.

She added that many young people, especially males, believe that ritual killings are a way to become wealthy.

“This particular menace is very serious and I would like a lot of young people to understand the danger in the hookup culture. Today, we have lots of reports of missing persons. By the time we start an investigation, not less than 10 young girls and ladies go missing daily.

“In-depth investigations also reveal that those cases are not by accidents. Most of them are connected to hookup channels and apps. They fall victim to strangers who causally invite them to unknown places, and eventually fall victim to being used for ritual purposes,” she said.

“Most cases of missing girls and ritual killings occurring in Ogun State of recent, I would like to say that it is not new. But as much as possible, the Ogun State Commissioner of Police has been able to tame these ugly incidents.”

The police boss added, “It stems from the ugly perspective of young persons who believe that ritual killing could enrich them. We have some of these unscrupulous elements who deceive young people to get human skulls or human body parts, which they use for some kind of concoction to get them rich.

“That is why we are having advocacy and sensitization, to enlighten young persons to make them understand that engaging in ritual killings does not in any way make them rich,” she said.

She stated that the police command is collaborating closely with the State Women Affairs Commission to tackle and curb the menace.

She stated, “The Ogun State government, particularly the Women Affairs Commission works in tandem with the police command by providing counselling sessions.

“Apart from that, whenever we have cases such as this if per adventure the girls escape the rituals, we also have a proper way of helping them go through the distress of mental health and anxiety they might have felt during the incident.

“The hookup culture is prevalent among young girls between the ages of 20 to about 32 years. The reason they get involved in this menace is because they feel they don’t get enough from their parents, and then the get-rich syndrome.”

Hookup culture refers to casual sexual relationships, like one-night stands, that often don’t involve emotional attachment or long-term commitment. While this trend has existed since the 1920s, it has become more common and accepted in recent years.

Some argue that hookup culture is a step forward for women’s freedom and empowerment, but others believe it harms the development of healthy and meaningful relationships.

This culture also reflects a double standard, with women often judged more harshly than men for engaging in casual encounters. For instance, women who hook up frequently or go too far in a single encounter may face derogatory labels like “hoe,” while men in similar situations are often praised.

Dr. Musa Adamu Aliyu, Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, has detailed how the commission, in collaboration with the Bureau of Public Procurement, successfully intercepted and blocked $300,000 allocated for a students’ Information and Communication Technology program, which was being funneled through suspicious accounts.

He shared this information on Tuesday in Abuja during the Centre for Media Policy and Accountability one-day National Policy Dialogue on Anti-Corruption, held at the ICPC Auditorium.

Aliyu emphasized the importance of cooperation between sister agencies to prevent corrupt officials from carrying out illicit activities.

He explained, “It was BPP that gave us an idea because something strange was happening concerning ICT for students. It was then that we had to look properly and make recoveries, blocking $300,000 in one of the accounts, as well as recovering an expensive vehicle.”

Aliyu also explained why his leadership is prioritizing the strengthening of the Commission’s prevention mandate.

As outlined in Section 6 (a-F) of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act 2000, the ICPC is tasked with three key mandates: enforcement, prevention, and public education/enlightenment.

The ICPC boss further detailed how the synergy with BPP uncovered irregularities related to the fund for ICT students, resulting in the recovery of $300,000 and an expensive vehicle.

“It was the synergy between us and BPP that led to the discovery of a strange thing that was happening in respect to a certain fund earmarked for students in the ICT sector.

“It was then that we had to look properly and make recoveries, blocking $300,000 in one of the accounts, as well as recovering an expensive vehicle,” he added.

The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Abiodun Fagbemi, SAN, expressed his satisfaction with the event.

Represented by Mr. Rotimi Oyedepo, SAN, he noted that the dialogue offered stakeholders a valuable opportunity to exchange ideas and discuss ways to sustain successful anti-corruption initiatives.

He also underscored the need for stronger collaboration among all stakeholders to enhance the preventive approaches of anti-corruption agencies.

Aliyu shared a notable achievement, highlighting the successful partnership between the ICPC and the Bureau of Public Procurement which led to the identification and blocking of $300,000 earmarked for students in the ICT sector.

He remarked, “I am encouraging us across all agencies to open up to one another. This will help us streamline what we are doing. There is no single arm of government, tier of government, or agency that can fight corruption alone, so we need to come together locally, regionally, and internationally to fight corruption.”

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has stated that the company associated with the forfeited estate in Abuja has denied ownership of the property.

On Monday, the anti-graft agency secured the final forfeiture of an estate in the federal capital territory (FCT).

The estate sits on 150,500 square metres in the country’s capital and contains 753 units of duplexes.

Dele Oyewale, the EFCC spokesperson, said the recovery was the agency’s largest since its inception in 2003.

However, the anti-graft agency did not immediately name the owner of the property—a development that many Nigerians criticised.

The EFCC spokesperson said the criticism that trailed the forfeiture of the estate is “unacceptable”.

Oyewale, in a statement on Tuesday, said the legal action that led to the forfeiture of the estate was instituted against the property and not the owners in line with provisions of the Advance Fee Fraud Act.

He said the company flagged during the investigation denied ownership of the estate after newspaper publication.

“The allegation of a cover-up of the identity of the promoters of the estate stands logic on its head in the sense that the proceedings for the forfeiture of the estate were in line with section 17 of the Advance Fee Fraud Act, which is a civil proceeding that allows for action-in-rem rather than action-in-personam,” the statement reads.

“The latter allows legal actions against a property and not an individual, especially in a situation of an unclaimed property.

“This act allows you to take up a forfeiture proceeding against a chattel that is not a juristic person. This is exactly what the commission did in respect of the estate.

“The proceedings that yielded the final forfeiture of the estate were products of actionable intelligence available to the commission.

“The company flagged by our investigations denied ownership of the estate following publications made in leading national newspapers.

“On the basis of this, the commission approached the court for an order of final forfeiture, which Justice Jude Onwuegbuzie of the federal capital territory, FCT, high court granted on Monday, December 2, 2024.

“It is important to note that the substantive criminal investigation on the matter still continues. It will be unprofessional of the EFCC to go to town by mentioning names of individuals whose identities were not directly linked to any title document of the properties.

“The EFCC is unwavering in its no-sacred-cow approach to every matter, and together we will make Nigeria greater.”

The lawmaker representing Ondo South in the Senate, Jimoh Ibrahim,  has said that wealthy Nigerians should be made to pay taxes.

According to Ibrahim, it’s a global practice that when an economic crisis hits a nation, the government directs its policies toward making the rich citizens pay heavy taxes to help the nation overcome its economic problems.

Senator Ibrahim stated this while briefing the Senate Press Corps after plenary on Tuesday evening, December 3.

He gave clarification on his intervention at plenary on the consideration of the report of the joint committees on Finance and National Planning and Economic Affairs on the 2025-2027 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP).

Jimoh said it would be the first time that the nation would tax wealthy citizens, adding that adequate taxing of economic net worth Nigerians was a means of shoring up the nation’s revenue base.

“My worry is that the rich in Nigeria are not paying enough taxes in order to be a good jolly fellow with the poor.

“In other countries, taxes are paid on transactions. The rich need to pay more taxes and one of the areas where our economic gap can be covered is when we address those lacuna.

“Luxury taxes should be monitored and collected. We should look at a law that will police transactional tax on the rich,” he said.

To make this effective, he said “there should be an adequate data bank of the taxable rich”.

“GDP to tax ratio in Nigeria is 18 percent, while the test 72 percent are not taxed.

“It is unfortunate economically that 72 percent of the Nigerian population are not in the tax net,” he added.

Nigerian politician, Doyin Okupe has said that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu should not be held responsible for the failures of his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari.

Speaking in an interview with The Sun, Okupe highlighted the fractured nature of the APC, describing it as a “conglomerate of strange bedfellows.”

He argued that the amalgamation of political groups such as the Congress of Progressive Change (CPC), Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), and others created an unstable foundation for governance.

“Tinubu cannot be held responsible for the government before him,” Okupe stated, acknowledging the pivotal role Tinubu played in bringing Muhammadu Buhari to power but insisting that the current administration should be judged independently.

Okupe dismissed claims of collapsing manufacturing and dwindling foreign direct investments, citing recent data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

He pointed to a reported 3% growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and significant improvements in the manufacturing sector during the last quarter.

“Foreign direct investment is increasing,” he asserted, adding that Tinubu’s administration had already resolved pressing financial issues, including settling $7 billion owed to international airlines.

Okupe urged Nigerians to adopt a realistic perspective on the nation’s challenges, emphasizing that the rot inherited from the previous administration cannot be resolved within a short timeframe.

“The lifespan of an administration is four years. If you have had rottenness that was unabated for more than eight years, do you think it can be fixed in 18 months? It cannot,” he argued.

Addressing the alarming rise in out-of-school children and youth restiveness, particularly in Northern Nigeria, Okupe attributed the situation to the neglect of social programs like the Almajiri schools initiated by former President Goodluck Jonathan.

He called for acknowledgment of Tinubu’s reformist agenda, comparing his approach to that of Lee Kuan Yew, who transformed Singapore over three decades.

“We’ve got a reformer in the villa, somebody who says, ‘I take responsibility, and I’m going to try to reform this country,’” Okupe said.

He emphasized the importance of national unity and support to achieve the government’s objectives.

“Let us agree, let us be factual,” he concluded, urging Nigerians to rally behind the reforms rather than demonize the administration.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday rejected calls to resign to break a political impasse in the country, saying such a scenario amounted to “political fiction”.

“It doesn’t make sense… it’s frankly not up to scratch to say these things,” Macron, whose government faces a no confidence vote in parliament on Wednesday, told reporters on the sidelines of a visit to Saudi Arabia.

“It so happens that if I am before you, it is because I was elected twice by the French people. I am extremely proud of this and I will honour this trust with all the energy that is mine until the last second to be useful to the country,” added Macron, who is due to serve until 2027.

Several prominent opposition figures and even some voices closer to the presidential faction have suggestion resignation could be Macron’s only viable option.

Macron also accused the far-right National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen of “unbearable cynicism” in backing the motion which threatens to topple the government of Prime Minister Michel Barnier.

“We must not scare people with these things, we have a strong economy,” he added.

While most commentators predict that the left and fa-right will team up to bring down the government, Macron appeared to hold out some hope saying he could “not believe” that the no confidence motion would we passed against the government.

Namibia’s ruling SWAPO party was declared winner Tuesday of last week’s disputed elections, ushering in the southern African country’s first woman president after a disputed vote that the main opposition has already said it does not recognise.

Vice-President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah took just over 57 percent of ballots followed by the candidate for the main opposition Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) with 25.5 percent, the election authority announced.

Nandi-Ndaitwah, 72, becomes the first woman to rule the mineral-rich southern African country that has been governed by the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) since independence in 1990.

The November 27 election was extended twice as logistical and technical problems, including a shortage of ballot papers, led to long queues.

Some voters gave up on the first day of voting after waiting for up to 12 hours.

The IPC has already said this was a deliberate attempt to frustrate voters and it would not accept the results of the elections.

Its presidential candidate Panduleni Itula, 67, said last week there were a “multitude of irregularities”.

No matter the result, “the IPC shall not recognise the outcome of that election”, he said on Saturday, the last day of the extended vote.

Opposition rejects poll

Itula said the IPC would “fight… to nullify the elections through the processes that are established within our electoral process”.

An organisation of southern African human rights lawyers serving as election monitors said the delays at the ballot box were intentional and widespread.

The Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) admitted to failures in the organisation of the vote, including a shortage of ballot papers and the overheating of electronic tablets used to register voters.

Of the nearly 1.5 million registered voters in the sparsely populated country, nearly 77 percent had cast ballots in the presidential vote, it said Tuesday.

The election was seen as a key test for SWAPO after other liberation-era movements in the region have lost favour with young voters.

In the past six months, South Africa’s African National Congress lost its parliamentary majority and the Botswana Democratic Party was ousted after almost six decades in power.

Namibia is a major uranium and diamond exporter but analysts say not many of its nearly three million people have benefited from that wealth in terms of improved infrastructure and job opportunities.

Unemployment among 15- to 34-year-olds is estimated at 46 percent, according to the latest official figures from 2018, which is almost triple the national average.

Nandi-Ndaitwah, a SWAPO stalwart known by her initials NNN, will be among the few women leaders on the continent.

The conservative daughter of an Anglican pastor, she became vice president in February this year.

Recognisable by her gold-framed glasses, she has tried to vaunt the wisdom of her years during the campaign where she was often wearing blue, red and green, the colours of her party and of the national flag.

Among her election promises, NNN said she intends to “create jobs by attracting investments using economic diplomacy.”