Armed with a sharp knife, a megaphone and dressed all in black, Gbenga Adewoyin could have passed for a medieval witch hunter, a herbal salesman or an urban preacher as he walked around a market in the south-western Nigerian city of Ibadan.

Those curious enough to get close in the Gbagi market quickly dispersed when they heard his message. "Anyone that can provide any evidence for the existence of the supernatural, be it juju or voodoo magic, will be offered 2.5m naira ($6,000, £4,650)," he announced repeatedly in Yoruba and English.

The 24-year-old atheist has recently emerged as a rebel publicly contesting the powers of the supernatural in this deeply religious country.

Belief in African traditional religions and its juju components are widespread in Nigeria, with many combining them with either Christianity or Islam, according to a 2010 report by the Pew Research Centre.

Many Nigerians believe that magic charms can allow humans to morph into cats, protect bare skins from sharp blades and make money appear in a clay pot.

These beliefs are not just held by the uneducated, they exist even at the highest level of Nigeria's academia.

Dr Olaleye Kayode, a senior lecturer in African Indigenous Religions at the University of Ibadan, told the BBC that money-making juju rituals - where human body parts mixed with charms makes money spew out of a pot - really work.

The naira notes that supposedly appear "are gotten by spirits from existing banks", he told the BBC.

Jude Akanbi, a lecturer at the Crowther Graduate Theological Seminary in Abẹ́òkúta, is also unequivocal about juju.

"This ability to be able to transform yourself to [a] cat, to disappear and reappear, these things are possible within the dynamics of traditional African religion.

"Although [it] sounds illogical, like old wives' tales, however from what we have seen and heard, these things are possible," he said.

Such beliefs, especially that human body parts and charms can produce money from a clay pot, have led to a recent wave of gruesome murders in the country, with single women often the victims.

"I feel horrible to see young people engage in these ritual killings.

"If money ritual worked, we would have seen a massive inflation in the economy for the decades that we have believed in it," Mr Adewoyin told the BBC.

He was in Ibadan, Oyo state, on the second of three planned in-country tours offering 2.5m naira, crowd-funded via Twitter, to anyone that can publicly demonstrate these juju powers.

"The knife is for anyone that claims their juju makes them blade-proof," he said.

Questioning the existence of supernatural powers is considered taboo in much of Nigerian society.

To be openly expressing such thoughts, as Mr Adewoyin was doing in a market, was risky. He could just as easily be arrested for blasphemy or lynched by an angry mob.

"Of course juju works, he doesn't know what he is saying," said one trader who lingered with a scowl on his face.

In his pocket was a black amulet, a small leather pouch containing supposedly magic charms, that he said was for protection. However, he was not interested in publicly demonstrating its powers, not even for $6,000.

Belief in magic often coexists with Christianity and Islam. Clerics from both monotheistic religions often refer to aspects of traditional African religions as evil - something real, but which can be defeated by prayer and their own higher powers.

Many pastors have become rich and famous on claims of having supernatural powers that can overcome juju and evil curses, something which many imams also practise.

However, no-one has taken up Mr Adewoyin's challenge at two of the venues in Ogun and Ibadan and he is not holding his breath for his next stop in Anambra state in the south-east.

While he has been dismissed by some as an attention seeker, no-one can hide from the grisly images of the bodies found recently with missing limbs and empty eye sockets in a resurgence of the sinister money-making juju rituals.

This killing of humans to use their body parts for magic purposes gripped Nigeria in the mid-90s and led to riots in the eastern city of Owerri after the kidnap and murder of an 11-year-old boy in 1996.

Now, with social media, hardly a day passes without reports of a missing person and pictures of mutilated corpses linked to juju.

There was widespread outrage last month after three men allegedly killed a 17-year-old girl in Ogun state to use her body parts in a ritual they believed would make them rich. They confessed to the killing after they were arrested by the police and have been charged in court.

The clay pot and red cloths they were caught with could have passed for a scene in a movie from Nollywood, Nigeria's film industry famous for depicting manifestations of juju, but this was real.

And they were young men - the oldest was 21, sparking the Twitter hashtag #At21, where users described what they were doing at that stage in life and bemoaning what they saw as societal pressures on young people to get rich quick.

The outrage over the girl's death made federal lawmakers debate juju in parliament and consider the "declaration of a state of emergency on ritual killings in the country", with its depiction in Nollywood movies mentioned as a factor.

Nigeria's Information Minister Lai Mohammed has also chipped in, blaming Nigerian movies and social media for the spate of killings.

He wants the films censor board to engage film makers "on the need to eschew money ritual content in their movies".

But film makers are not having it - they feel he has unduly picked on Nollywood in what is a national crisis.

"The minister misfired, he cannot breach our fundamental rights to create," actor and producer Kanayo O Kanayo told the BBC.

He said the minister was neglecting what has become a societal issue and the inability of families, traditional and religious leaders, and politicians to ensure the moral upbringing of young people.

While the debate rages about who is to blame for the killings, a much broader conversation is to be had about Nigeria's educational system that fails to persuade people that juju and the supernatural are not real, says Mr Adewoyin.

He is hoping that his rebellious tour can expose those he calls tricksters, claiming the supernatural powers of juju, and help put an end to the spate of ritual killings.

"For a reasonable human being to believe that a human with all his biological components can turn to yam or banana is illogical, and worrisome," he said.

Culled from BBC

Monitor lizards grow bigger than that eventually. And no, they are not venomous to humans.

Komodo dragons on the other hand,, if that thing bites you once, that's the end

doggedfighter:
Seems people are now competing on who will eat the weirdest animals.

Leaving me wondering if we're in a war situation where people eat almost anything to survive.
Op, is openly celebrating and eating rats with heaps of Santana while joyfully and gleefully uploading pictures.

And even giving the rats names to reassure his stomach.


Hopefully this pandemic will soon be over so sanity and normalcy will return.

For no one can predict the kind of things some will eat if it lingers.

That's not a weird animal. It's what yorubas call okete.

Kenyans have rallied to the aid of a widow filmed cooking stones for her eight children to make them believe she was preparing food for them.

Peninah Bahati Kitsao, who lives in Mombasa, hoped they would fall asleep while they waited for their meal.

She used to wash laundry locally but such work is hard to come by now as people have restricted their interactions because of coronavirus.

A shocked neighbour, Prisca Momanyi, alerted the media to her plight.

After being interviewed, the widow has received money via mobile phone and through a bank account that was opened for her by Ms Momanyi, as the mother of eight does not know how to read and write.

Ms Kitsao, who lives in a two-bedroomed house without running water or electricity, has described the generosity as a "miracle".

"I didn't believe that Kenyans can be so loving after I received phone calls from all over the country asking how they might be of help," she told Tuko news website.

She had told NTV that her hungry children had not been deceived for long by her delaying stone-cooking tactics.

"They started telling me that they knew I was lying to them, but I could do nothing because I had nothing."

Her neighbour had come around to see if the family was OK after hearing the children crying, NTV reports.

As part of measures to cushion the most vulnerable from the coronavirus crisis, the government has launched a feeding programme.

But it had yet to reach Ms Kitsao, who was widowed last year when her husband was killed by a gang.

Her neighbour has also thanked the county authorities and the Kenya Red Cross, who have also come to help Ms Kitsao.

Many more households in that neighbourhood of the coastal city are now going to benefit from the relief food scheme too, the authorities say.

Their:




Please, I need word of encouragement now. He is not strong enough financially to have a family.

Lolzz... Actually it is possible for pre-cum to contain a small amount of sperms.
Scientifically proven

bonnyhope:


O yes

Well I can't explain properly here.... If you know what I mean.

Hit me up to know more...
Lol

bonnyhope:


What's this BJ
i am innocent here

Really? Well do you want me to explain it to you properly?

oloriLFC:
Maybe the boy told his dad his interest is in music and baba said he must be a graduate. Reason he failed the basic subjects

Lol...

That means he's heartless then. So he intentionally failed the other courses after seeing the amount of money his father spent?? That kind pikin fit kill his father o

Lol

Bettymax:


Aswear the way the guy type am like sey him be d scientist wey discover coronavirus.

But still, not all black men are unwilling na...

Meanwhile, Zambian police wan prosecute a man that spent $21000 on his son's school fees.... Stupid boy that had A in music alone
��

As long as my babe continues taking good care of herself and maintains proper hygiene,,, I don't see why not.

Hell, you can give her orgasm just from head alone....

BrilliantGigolo:
No man in his sane mind will suck a reservoir of approximately 6 million bacterial and fungal infections.

Only Simps do such.

But you expect ladies to give you BJ right?

Lmao.... See hypocrisy

Default launcher

Ade (not real name) was given until midnight to vacate his apartment.

Five months earlier, the Nigerian student had moved to Guangzhou, southern China, to study computing at Guangdong university. He had just paid his university fees for the new semester when his landlord informed him that he needed to leave.

He scrambled to pack his belongings. The police were waiting for him and his roommates outside.

When he attempted to drop off his bags at a friend's warehouse, he was prevented from entering. He spent several nights sleeping on the streets.

"Look how they are treating us, how they forced us out of our houses and forced us to self-quarantine," he told the BBC from a hotel in the city.

"They told me that the [test] result is out and I am negative. Still they don't want me to go out."

African community leaders in Guangzhou believe the vast majority of the city's African population have been forced into quarantine or are sleeping on the streets.

"Some are in hiding," said one community leader over an encrypted social media app.


In early April, online rumours began to circulate that parts of the city where Africans live and trade were under lockdown after two Nigerians who had tested positive for the virus escaped. Chinese media reported that a Nigerian patient had attacked a Chinese nurse.

The health commission began widespread testing of African nationals.

The local authority says it has tested every African national in the city for the coronavirus. It found that 111 of the more than 4,500 Africans in Guangzhou tested positive.

"They just came with their ambulance and medical team and took us. All they said was that it was Chinese law and an order from the government," said Hao (not real name), a businessman from Ivory Coast.

Guangzhou has become a hub for Africans in China.

Towards the end of the century's first decade, hundreds of thousands were thought to live in the city. Many of them entering the country on short-term visas to buy goods from nearby factories and send them back to the continent.

By some estimates there were more than 200,000 dwelling in the city. Some settled for the long term. Many overstayed their visas.


In recent years, the numbers have dwindled. Businessmen have complained of unfair visa restrictions and unfair treatment. In 2018, small hotels in Xiao Bei Lu, a popular area for African traders, temporarily turned away Africans from several nations, they told the BBC.

"Most of the Africans living there are nice and friendly with the locals, and they are doing business as normal for the past years," said one Guangzhou resident who did not want to be named.

"If there is a problem, it may be that some Africans are overstaying and doing some illegal things.

"The conflict over the virus test, I think it is something of a misunderstanding. It is not about racial discrimination. That's not the style of the Guangzhou people," he said.

"People are not hostile to Africans in their mind, unless some Africans are doing things against the local rules," he added.


The Chinese government dismissed claims of racism, insisting China and Africa are friends, partners and brothers and that it has zero tolerance to racism.

But many of those the BBC spoke to say they have been singled out because of their race.

"Ninety-eight per cent of Africans are in quarantine," said one community leader who did not want to be named.


Africans across China say they are facing increased scrutiny. On the deserted campus of Wuhan University African faces outnumber Chinese.

"We are the ones that are left behind," says Michael Addaney a Ghanaian graduate student studying in the Chinese city where coronavirus was first detected.

For more than two months he has waged a social media campaign demanding his government bring his countrymen and women home.

At the height of the outbreak, an estimated 5,000 African students were stranded in Wuhan and neighbouring cities, after most sub-Saharan nations failed to evacuate their citizens.

"We feel like sacrificial lambs for no reason. The plan was to keep the people safe by sacrificing us," asked one student who did not want to be named.

"What was the point as our countries didn't put measures in place to protect the people from the virus?"

When Wuhan officially ended its lockdown on 8 April, normality began to creep back into the city.

More than a week on, African students on campuses remain unable to leave the grounds of the university. They have no information of when their own lockdown will be lifted.

Back in Guangzhou, a student from Sierra Leone said she believed Africans were being singled out.

"All of this is happening because there has been a rise in foreign imported cases, [but] the majority are from Chinese nationals," she said.

"Only a small percentage is made up of Africans."

She received a letter from her university stating that all Africans needed to be tested. Despite being tested twice she remains in quarantine.

"With all this happening, the Chinese have exhibited racism and discrimination against black people here in Guangzhou.

"I know people from my church who are white and non-Africans who are not going through what we are going through - quarantine and multiple testing," she said.

"Quarantine hotels are like forced detention for blacks."

A Nigerian businessman under quarantine said that "it was the police that removed me from my apartment and put me on the streets".

"I don't have any problem with my landlord. He didn't even know I had been evicted. My children slept on the streets for many days."


On social media, hundreds of Africans in Guangzhou have organised groups supplying each other with regular updates. They send photos of numerous hotels and hospitals where businessmen, residents and students are being held across the city.

Some post test results showing that they are negative. Others post medical and hotel bills that they say they cannot afford to pay. Videos of Africans sleeping on the streets have gone viral.

The Guangdong government has publicised a hotline for "foreigners who experience discrimination". But for those in quarantine, suspicions remain high. Videos continue to circulate online of Africans being moved between hotels by ambulance.

Xiao Bei Lu is known as "China's little Africa" but social media videos show that its streets, at one time packed with African traders, are now deserted.


BBC

No harm in revealing what you found.
Girls also watch porn too


Yesterday a girl mistakenly sent a porn comic to my department group..... She deleted it but I use GBwhatsapp. Lol

Just talk with her and don't be judgmental.

That last one na true o

Her voice lasan

This thread is dying o



DARE

klem93:

Can u Bleep your best friends babe if u have the opportunity?

Nope.
I can't do that to my friend.

Time to join in. Lol



Truth

Greenpack:

OMG! Prove it please.

Why do u want proof.

Leemao. Asa cannot see this.

Hmm

Meanwhile 100 level students of lautech are just about to start exams
LMAO

Wait o,

When did Biafra gain independence that they are celebrating 50 years??

LMAO

Frankdoz8:
FIFA have just approved Biafra football team. Afonjas in pain now!

So that's your starting lineup eh?
That says a lot about your so called Biafra.

Half-goats

Liverpool have the most valuable squad in the transfer market from Europe's top-five leagues, according to research group CIES Football Observatory.

With an aggregated value of 1.4bn euros (£1.27bn), the Reds top the list ahead of fellow Premier League side Manchester City (£1.24bn) in second.

Chelsea are fifth, while Manchester United and Tottenham are in the top 10.

With a total value of £33.7m, Bundesliga side Paderborn are bottom of the table.

Liverpool are runaway leaders of the Premier League and need two victories from their remaining nine games to claim their first top-flight title in 30 years.

They won the Champions League last season and have added the Uefa Super Cup and Fifa Club World Cup this term.

Frank Lampard's Chelsea surprisingly sit fifth in the table with a squad value of £917m, but CIES say they have had a "strong increase thanks to the outbreak of many young talents following the transfer ban imposed by Fifa".

The CIES use a number of variables including the age of the player, performances, economic value of their club and inflation to work out the values of players.

Paris St-Germain's World Cup winning forward Kylian Mbappe, 21, has highest transfer value at more than £227m.

The first trial in people of a vaccine to protect against pandemic coronavirus is starting in the US later on Monday, according to reports.

A group of 45 healthy volunteers will have the jab, at the Kaiser Permanente research facility, in Seattle.

The vaccine cannot cause Covid-19 but contains a harmless genetic code copied from the virus that causes the disease.

Experts say it will still take many months to know if this vaccine, or others also in research, will work.

Scientists around the world are fast-tracking research.

And this first human trial, funded by the National Institutes of Health, sidesteps a check that would normally be conducted - making sure the vaccine can trigger an immune response in animals.

But the biotechnology company behind the work, Moderna Therapeutics, says the vaccine has been made using a tried and tested process.

This will hopefully prime the body's own immune system to fight off the real infection.

The volunteers will be given different doses of the experimental vaccine.

They will each be given two jabs in total, 28 days apart, into the upper arm muscle.

But even if these initial safety tests go well, it could still take up to 18 months for any potential vaccine to become available for the public.



Let us hope for the best.

LibertyRep:
Nigeria media has done well to protect the identity of the Italian and the other contacts , something the English media cannot do. Now the whole world knows that Arsenal manager has Convid 19. Shior.

Even Premium Times with it's investigative journalism cannot break the impregnable circle.

I'm not saying there is no Italian, I just want to plead with them to ensure that adequate measures be put in place to prevent real and verifiable Convid 19 carrier(s) from getting to Nigeria.
Imagine Corona in the street of the overcrowded Lagos city, e don be for Nigeria be that.

Arteta posted it online himself. Odoi did the same thing.
They saw no point in hiding the fact that they were infected.

Fortuna2:
No, men enjoy rape!

So it's okay for a man to be raped??

Stupid feminist spotted.