Of Nigerians and the Lunacy of Money Rituals

(By Temidayo Ahanmisi) - Meanwhile we still do NOT have the tiniest shred of evidence to suggest that money rituals work.

Not one.

Every suspected money ritualist has a thriving business which they pursue.
The question is Why? What's the point of striving at a trade when said ritualist could just as well order money to pour from anywhere, and crisp notes would litter the place?

I think I'm moving far ahead of myself on this. In the first place, the said ritualist or the native doctors even needing to subjugate their supposed powers to currency bills is the first fail.

Why can't the ritualist be powerful enough to just get all his needs delivered willingly to his doorstep? 
Bankers would bring cash. Car dealers would drop cars and skip away. Food sellers would drop food items..

Why need money? Why "mint" money?

Rationalism trumps this base superstition at any time, but the politics of religious people in need of validation of their myths and faith would not let reason have sway and take the day over ignorance, fear and Incredulity. It is imperative to the religious to have a phantom devil so intractably powerful that they would fight tooth and nail to maintain the contrivance of an omnipotent Evil, capable of the most insane feats.

Question the efficacy of voodoo to kill persons via telepathic murder today and you find religious folks, Christian especially, jumping down your throat to rue your unbelief. 

Ask just how a helpless tot could be capable of toppling the family car, wrecking a business, causing the death of family members via an incredible agency called witchcraft, and you will be mocked for not being African enough.

Get to the money question and you'd be told the most towering tales ever conceivable. 

You'd hear from friends and family and neighbours of friends and family of "live witnesses" how a once-upon-a-time indigent shoemaker had a beautiful wife who disappeared and barely a year later, indigent shoemaker became one of the wealthiest men on earth. 

You will hear how on his death, bizarre happenings forced his neighbours to force open a mysterious door in his house and there was his vanished wife vomiting wads of crisp currency. Voilà the source of his "unexplained sudden wealth".

Recently we were entertained by another viral infection of a 'Share as received' WhatsApp broadcast of an alleged drug dealing kingpin in Ozubulu who allegedly used his mother for rituals to perhaps aid his cash supply or business.

If you dare wonder just why someone who could get a deceased human being to give him his needs would need to go the arduous route of peddling drugs, you will hear the ubiquitous line "There are forces in this world."

Our Arts swear unflinching allegiance to anti-intelligence and the promotion of mental stagnancy is the bedrock on which it rests, so as can be expected, these superstitions are given the crown of authority via our movies, music and stories. 
Over and over the message is repeated to an unenlightened and poorly educated society:

Ritual killing is (also) a money making method.

The fact that poor attempts are made to place caveats on the miseducation matters little. The message remains. You can kill someone or "pledge" the health or progress of self or family member to some dark forces and you will become rich or immortal.

I wouldn't worry about these descents into the darkness of Ignorance and studious illogicality but for the fact that this wilful silliness records human casualties without fail.

Ritualists' dens are being uncovered almost on a one-a-week basis in South West enclaves of our country these days. 

In the 21st century, the act of murdering human persons and harvesting vital organs ostensibly for increasing financial net worth, longevity of life and promotion of health, as well as securing advancement in political, business and myriad fortunes is actually an industry in a pivotal African land which boasts of one of the highest numbers of tertiary school graduates, a literary Nobel laureate, public intellectuals, science students, doctors, PhDs, tech enthusiasts and the highest population of religious citizens.

The 8-year old who was raped to death and then mutilated by the Uniport undergraduate in Port Harcourt three days ago is the latest victim of the Nollywood we jointly helped create with our ready credulity, our aversion to inquiry, our unabashed scorn for science and our gleeful rejection of the scientific method of Scepticism, Inquiry, Rationalism, Reason, Logic and Empiricism.

That child died because she had the misfortune of being born into a society where a young man is schooled into the belief that her eyes, tongue, heart, forehead and reproductive organs can be ground into a paste and used to prepare a cash minting concoction, never mind that his teachers from time immemorial have not been able to explain just why they have not produced a society with good healthcare or been able to "ritualize" their way through an economic recession.

That boy needed his own "godwin" story. He needed his own "Oluwa is involved" testimony in a society which celebrates a young man for nothing else besides his stupendously expensive Gucci branded clothing and luggage, This, and a penchant for wearing blouses for no clear reason beside snapping tons of photographs.

He couldn't go to Malaysia. He'd need some money at least to become an internet fraudster. The government is on permanent holiday. The society cannot even think it's way to securing a bottle of groundnuts to feed itself.

What to do? Ah yes! Money rituals. Now that's an option. Nollywood says so. The Church insists. Society confirms it. All that's needed is the spiritualist who would prepare his own money minting concoction for a small fee. 

As for the ingredients for the concoction, that's no problem. Children are everywhere. Nollywood says if you can't get the usual cigarette-smoking prostitute, you can grab a child. Or your mother. 

The next time you Humans of Facebook get into one of your "Juju can slap you" cyber cat fights, I want you to remember the casualties out there in the society you are ever creating.

Thank you all and goodbye.