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The stories coming out of our clime in recent times are rather depressing. They show how far gone this nation has stepped down the slope. They come in torrents such that it becomes an uphill task to keep up with the number. The stories we get from news outlets lately provoke introspection. In Kano, a little girl was kidnapped and later killed by someone who ought to protect her. I was taken aback by the reported confessions of the so-called school teacher who wanted to extort money from the parents of the pupil. He wasted the innocent little girl and buried her in a shallow grave. The media has captured most of these stories but there is a fresh one about a secondary school girl who used her mother’s phone to call her boyfriend and erased the call log and went out to meet the boy. Her dismembered body parts were later seen in a ritual proceeding organized by the so-called boyfriend. The matter that produced the most chilling of goose pimples was the case in Ogun State of three boys, most of whom were in their teens, one of them was reported to be in his early twenties, who lured a girl out of her house, butchered her and were actually cooking her head in a pot when they were apprehended. What do we say about the young man, in fact, men, who were caught ‘eating shit,’ to drive the disgusting fact home, because it was said to be part of the ritual proceedings that would translate them to men of means?
Such stories as the ones above have become part of the news offering virtually every day. You only need to open the crime pages of newspapers to see an avalanche of such heart-rending stories. I have been too shocked to make comments but, lately, I have felt a certain unease, which, I hope, would be assuaged by letting off my burden in commentaries such as this. Many writers opine that writing provides a kind of catharsis. Perhaps, I would have acquitted myself of any blame if I do this.
The Nigerian society has steadily bowed to the effect of wealth and riches. It has become the singular yardstick for measuring success. Society hardly ever questions the sources of wealth but eulogize it to such amazing heights that its source becomes inconsequential. Musicians, praise-singers, even priests, eulogize money with the sole aim of getting a bit of the action. Money is used to appreciate musicians and, these days, when people hear good messages in the church they appreciate them with money. It is the denominator for appreciation. People build highrise structures, and the onlookers know that such owners have no known means of livelihood or that they are involved in dubious sources of making money. They clap for them and urge their relatives and friends to emulate the moneyman, regardless of of whatever means he has employed to bring such stupendous wealth into being. When young people see such elevation of dubious money, they want to be like the Joneses. They begin to tinker with the idea that people can make money through other means than working and thinking outside the box. They begin to look for invisible means of making money, given that they have seen how such wealth is elevated.
I have never, for once, believed that there is ritual money, although some people have told me that it does exist. I have never seen anyone who made money through rituals, although no one would say so if they did. But what manner of money ritual did people in the ilk of Aliko Dangote, Femi Otedola, Mike Adenuga, Bola Tinubu, Orji Uzor Kalu, David Oyedepo, Chris Oyakhilome, David Ibiyiome and the large concentration of billionaires in Nnewi, Anambra State, do to come out on top of the ladder as men of means? Did they kill and cook human heads? Who’s deceiving these young people into these bizarre things in the quest for money?
In any case have they not also heard that such means of wealth have consequences, if, indeed they exist? They want to gain societal respect through the money they throw about in parties, and the kind of donations they make in church to get applause.
I have written nothing so far to make me sound like I don’t like wealth or comfort. We all do, including those who go about making us believe that they do not like money, as though the houses they live in and the cars they drive came from the moon. The substance here is that money should and can be made through legitimate means. What has happened to respect and sanctity of human life? When did human life become cheaper than those of chickens? Hard drugs have driven these young people to these bizarre deeds. Can we have rich people come on television and social media to denounce such acts, and tell young people that they did not make money through rituals and eating human faeces and other such bizarre procedures that amount to sheer idiocy? It could help stop the galloping move of this negative act in the land. If Otedola, Dangote and people of their ilk tell these teenage wannabes that their trip to the land of rituals is a journey to the land of no return, they could retrace their wayward steps. This journey to the land of rituals is scary. The unwitting impression goes to world that we have become a republic of money rituals.
The richest men in the world did not do rituals. Please, let these young men know that they are on a journey that leads to the abyss. This constitutes part of the reason we hear expressions like ‘dark continent’. We must stop this slide into darkness. Please, let groups and organizations undertake this advocacy. The irony of a people now engaged in reverse evangelism to those who brought them the gospel being involved in such dastardly acts indicates the evangelism at home is incomplete. Let advocacy groups move into action and dissuade these young people from this trip to perdition.
