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 just concluded 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.