With all the Nollywood hype on juju, money rituals,
power rituals, witches and wizards, and prayers that cure all problems,
one would have thought that Nigeria would be topping the medals’ list at
the on-going Olympics in London. The Americas, Asia, Europe and other
parts of the world would have stayed by the sidelines kowtowing with
trembling and trepidation as Nigeria pockets medal after medal.
But regrettably, it seems the potency of the juju
from these named climes dwarfs ours. Or, perhaps the citizens of these
continents pray better and harder than we do. Or, put more resignedly:
Maybe God loves these nations more than Nigeria.
Less than three weeks ago – precisely on July 25 –
the
media reported the arrest of two men from Nasarawa State, near the
Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, with the fresh head of a
seven-year-old boy. The victim was identified as Samu Danjuma, the child
of their neighbours. According to the confession they made to the
police before the media when they were paraded by officials of the State
Security Services, they had lured the boy with a loaf of bread, drowned
him, and beheaded him for sale to a man who had promised them
N250,000.00.
On July 27, two men were arrested in Lagos with the
decomposing, mutilated body of their 39-year-old brother, Akinbuyi
Ajayi, in their family house in Festac Town. Some body parts such as the
head, hands, private part and a part of the two legs had been removed
from the corpse. The decomposing corpse was discovered after the two
were caught by the police allegedly selling some human parts. That led
to a search of their house, a duplex which their parents had left behind
for them.
Just like these two unfortunate people murdered by
men without consciousness, many have been killed in like manner. Many
have disappeared and have never been found till today.
The reason for this wicked act is that many have been
made to believe that using some human parts such as head, heart, eyes,
lungs, and genitals for rituals makes one rich and powerful. It is also
believed that elections are won easily when charms are prepared with
such human parts. There is also the belief that such human parts can be
used to prepare charms that will make someone invincible, with such a
person’s body impenetrable by bullets, arrows and machete cuts.
It is futile arguing whether these claims are true or
false, for mystical issues are never empirical and open. But one
question nobody has been able to answer is: If human sacrifice or the
occult gives such stupendous and inexplicable wealth and power, why are
the top ten richest men in the world not all Nigerian men of the occult,
since the money that comes through the occult flows in like a river
while the money that comes in through businesses and investments comes
in countable proportions?
This belief that money and power can be obtained
through human sacrifice and the occult has been accentuated and promoted
by many of the films produced by the Nigerian home video industry. It
is a fact that the 1992 home video, Living in Bondage, which was the
first Nigerian home video that kick-started what is today known as
Nollywood, focused primarily on the making of money through the occult. A
young man, who saw himself living from hand to mouth as an employee,
was convinced to sacrifice his wife to the occult to become rich. He
budged and suddenly became a multi-millionaire. At the end of the film, a
pastor delivered him from the grip of the occult. Interestingly, many
people believe that such rituals can indeed give them wealth and power,
and so they seek occult powers and human sacrifice as the solution to
their financial problems.
While the film producers and directors are producing
films that promote the quick-fix life, many religious leaders intensify
that same way of life by making their members and those who watch them
on TV or listen to them on the radio to believe that one can go to bed a
pauper and wake up with duplexes and exotic cars just by ‘praying’ and
‘sowing a seed’.
That same quick-fix mentality runs through all our
life as a nation. It is the driving force behind drug-trafficking,
advance fee fraud, armed robbery, bribery and corruption and
embezzlement of public funds. Many compatriots have been made to believe
that all they need to succeed in life is a supernatural occurrence,
which will happen like a bang.
So, on all fronts, our nation has been reduced to a
nation of men and women who are eager to reap from where they did not
sow; a nation that does not work but wants to eat; a nation that
believes more in good luck than in hard work; a nation that believes
that its duties and responsibilities will be carried out by supernatural
forces one bright sunny morning and all its challenges will be a thing
of the past.
And so, whether we prepare well for such sporting
events as the Africa Nations Cup, World Cup, the Olympics or not, we
hope and pray that we will excel somehow. Whether or not the health
system, the education system, the agriculture and productivity sectors
are nose-diving, we believe that something will happen to turn around
our fortunes as a nation.
We have jettisoned the biblical injunction that he
who does not work should not eat, as well as that which says that faith
without work is dead. Seeing our desperation to make quick money and
achieve quick feats, some conmen in the name of medicine men or
religious leaders simply feed on our weakness by making us believe that
some rituals or prayers can catapult us overnight from penury to wealth
and power.
Our movie makers assume they are teaching a lesson by
making these movies that show people involving in human sacrifice,
becoming stupendously rich, suffering later and being saved by pastors
at the end. On the contrary, many who watch these home videos get a
different message: that the occult men who got retributive justice in
the home videos were not smart enough to abide by all the tenets of the
occult. They, therefore, believe that when they make their own money
through the occult, they will be smart enough to avoid all the
loopholes. These occult-based home videos teach no lessons in effect:
all they do is show the youths that there is a quick way to make money
and obtain power.
In addition, the home video makers are inadvertently
portraying Nigeria as a land where all rich men and women are members of
the occult and people who have made their money through human
sacrifice. I have heard some West African nationals dismiss the wealth
of Nigerian men and women as “blood money”, a term which in Nollywood
means money acquired through human sacrifice and occult powers.
The time has come for Nigeria to directly or
indirectly intervene in the type of films released to the public as well
as the type of message some of our religious leaders preach. That may
keep us and our children safer, and make our youths appreciate the
beauty in working and earning a living. The 2012 London Olympics has
shown that medals, like success, go to nations that rely on hard work
and long term preparations than on good luck.
Share your thoughts...thanks!
Thank you Onwuka, this the best article i have read since 1985. Your article is so onpoint and well written. I'm going to share this article and make sure that every Nigeria get to read this wonderful piece.
ReplyDeleteThank you once again onwuka for this piece.
Onwuka, may u increase more in wisdom. The problems of money-hungry Nigerians is just this, both in the world & in the church, God bless u.
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