Reflections Without Mirror: What Are Money Rituals: Part 2- Niyi Aborisade
What Are Money Rituals
Since the last piece that I posted on 4th November 2023, I have received many rejoinders from different people. Some expressed their belief in money rituals, and some expressed their disbelief in money rituals. It has always been like that from the time immemorial, but taking a percentage of those who believed in the existence of money rituals is about 80 per cent to 20 per cent of those who do not believe. For better understanding, money rituals can be defined
as an occult practice in which human beings and their organs are sacrificed to the gods or daemons in return for riches, usually monetary, purported to rain from nowhere but fill the room where the sacrifice is being made. This piece attempts a naturalistic hypothesis on the reasons for the belief in money ritual.
The first question I will address my mind to is why should anyone consider money rituals in the first instance? the love of money is the root of all evils. It is the inordinate love of money and lack of vision that makes people think of money rituals and using their fellow human beings for it. They are not ready to labour before getting money in abundance. I have noted that many people have been swindled in their quest to make rituals for money. Some have lost their lives in the process ,some have turned mad and became rituals themselves. Even amongst those people that were considered successful in money rituals were just local champions within their little enclaves where they live. I know someone who is now insane in his attempt to engage in money rituals, and he has remained in his insanity for over 30 year. He is now 61 years old, and so he was around 31 years old when he attempted to do money rituals. If he had been steadfast in his work, perhaps he would have been a successful man today. He has wasted his life chasing shadows and it is almost irreversible. There were three elderly people that I knew, and two of them were deceased now. The troika decided to visit an herbalist to assist them in money rituals. They provided everything the herbalist asked for and so the herbalist brought out a big cock and the first one amongst them volunteered to accept the rituals of using cock. So the herbalist brought out many corns and spilled it on the ground for the cock to eat it, surprisingly, the cock only picked two. The man jumped over the window and ran away because if they used the cock he would of course become rich buy he will only live for two years. The second one preferred to swallow some prepared charms inside a small gourds for money rituals, and not long after that, he started suffering severe stomach aches and later died at the University College Hospital Ibadan. None of them made it. It was the first man that jumped over the window that narrated to us what they did when the second man died.
In the world today, out of the two thousand richest people , we can barely find two Nigerians, and we know the source of their wealth and how they became successful. It was not through money rituals.
My observation on this matter is that, initially, the practice of money rituals was common amongst the illiterates, but it is now becoming widespread amongst the elites. For sometimes, it appeared the practice was reduced to the lowest level when there were genuine people of God preaching salvation without showing any iota of interest on wealth but on the kingdom of God. Too much concentration on preaching of prosperity and acquisition of sudden wealth by most religious leaders across the two major religions may have contributed to the surge. I have also considered whether people would have considered money rituals under good governance where there are adequate provisions for social amenities and the government takes care of their needs. Unsuprisingly, my answer is yes, in as much as there are greedy, lazy people all over Nigeria, in as much as we have fake pastors and fake Imams or alfas and babalawos, the business will continue to thrive in our society. Though money rituals are peculiar to us in Nigeria because we understand and believe in mysticism and put our trust in it more than technology; so this practice creates an allurement to those who want to cut the corner and get rich quickly. However, before they realise their foolishness, they have killed their unsuspecting victims and there was no money falling from the skies.
One is, therefore, not astonished as to why they are still stealing people in Nigeria for money rituals, This week, we heard of a houseboy who killed his boss and cut off his genitals for money rituals.
This wicked people should know or ought to know that their rituals have limited capacity and may not even work the majority of the time.
In conclusion, if there is anything like money rituals at all, I will entreat people not to engage in it. Apart from the wickedness and the sorrow and other bad consequences that it can bring to those who engages in it, it cannot take them anywhere. The richest people in the world today are those who worked hard and made discovery of new things. Let there be a change of mindset and put an end to money rituals.
Niyi Aborisade is a lawyer, a Human Rights Activist and a historian
