Reflections Without Mirror: What are Money Rituals ? Part one: Niyi Aborisade.
An elderly friend of mine asked me to put my searchlight on money rituals and write out my findings. He emphasised that this issue has become a serious matter, considering the amount of missing people in Nigeria who have become victims of rituals.
Without prejudice to the subject matter, I must express my sadness that when the advanced and developed world leaders are meeting over the impact of Artificial Intelligence that borders on advanced technology in the world, we in Nigeria are encumbered with money rituals. I remind myself that no Nigeria citizens have made it to the list of the twenty richest people in the world. It therefore made me think that even if there is anything like money rituals, it is limited in the provision of the said money,totally unreliable, waste of lives and time. The earlier people realise this, the better.
The issue and controversies surrounding money rituals in Nigeria are as old as the country itself. On the one hand are the people who did not believe there is any ritual that can bring sudden money other than to work, do business, trade and be successful. Well, some people steal, politicians and civil servants embezzles money as well in order to become rich too. Those are facts.
On the other hand, are those who believe in money rituals, particularly money rituals that involve the use of human beings. To believe that something exists is not synonymous to engaging in that thing. For example, christians believe there is demonic power in this world, but they are not demon possessed. They would rather deal with it and cast it out.
It is now pervasive in our country, Nigeria, that people are using their fellow human beings for money rituals. Men and women, boys and girls, are being stolen every day by the ritualists for the purpose of money rituals and innocent blood are being shed for some people to become rich. This prompted former governor of Lagos state, Babatunde Raji Fashola, to voice his opinion out on this phenomenon. He asked a pertinent question as to whether someone who is poor ( for the majority of the victims were poor people) can produce money on death. To him, it does not make sense. I look at his response from two perspectives. Firstly, a man of his calibre and position must say something to discourage anyone from engaging in money rituals, and so his denials of it is a way to deploy his clear message. Secondly, perhaps he genuinely did not believe in it at all, I know some people who did not believe in the existence of using human beings or anything for money rituals. To quickly answer his excellency, being poor physically is different from being poor spiritually and it is the spirit of the victims of ritualists that are sent on errand to work in the spirit for the living. My exegesis is not an endorsement or an expression of belief in money rituals.
As a teenagerthen,I held a discussion with my father on this subject and he lectured us that there is nothing like money rituals; that there is no voodoo or rituals that can deliver money to anyone on the surface of tbe earth. I disagreed with him then. I said to him that if there is nothing like money rituals, why are people engaging in it. He believed that they were just wasting the lives of their victims just as Fashola thought recently. I have therefore conducted thorough investigation on the matter. This is important because it is so common amongst Yoruba people to attribute people financial or political success to rituals.
Is that belief correct? Below are my hypothesis:
In as much as there are demonic forces operating on earth and there are other spiritual forces as well and men continue to practise voodo in this our side of the world, It is natural for people to believe there are voodo or rituals that can bring political success or money but all the roads that involved rituals are full of blood and destruction. I therefore entreat anyone not to engage in it. There are various things I have heard from people during my investigation about the kinds of money rituals that exist. Though, not all of them require human blood or sacrifices. There are some they said that they will starve a chicken for about 5 or 7 days and after 7 days, they will put lot of corns before that chicken and the amounts of corn that it eats will be the number of years the person will live on earth. Some may require the use of parts of their body, like becoming impotence or have incurable disease on his body throughout his entire life. Some, they will request them to find virgins or hunchback man or any human beings. I heard from some people who escaped from the dens of their abductors that when they were tested , they discovered they could not be useful and were set free.
The first question that I will address my mind to is….. to be continued
Niyi Aborisade is a lawyer, a human rights activist and a historian
