[EDITORIAL] Killing For Money Ritual: Wither Nigeria?

The recent arrest of three young boys; Wariz Oladehinde (17), Abdul Gafar Lukman (19) and Mustakeen Balogun (20) by the police in Ogun State in connection with the alleged killing of a girl simply identified as Rofiat; has brought to the fore once more, the dangerous dimension the quest for quick wealth through killing for ritual is taking in contemporary Nigeria.

The young Rofiat said to be a girlfriend to one Soliu (a friend to the arrested trio) now on the run, was reported to have been lured by the so called boy friend to where she was murdered and dismembered with intent to use her parts for money ritual.

It is not as if incidents of killing for money ritual is new with us, but the sudden increase in the number of occurences and the audacity of the perpetrators seriously calls for concern.  Nigeria has unofficially become Africa’s headquarters of killers for money ritual; an ignoble and callous venture that now identifies our country as a failed state.

As unscientific as the argument about killing human beings for making ritual for quick wealth may sound, countless numbers of incidents and confessional statements of arrested dramatis personae have proved that there is a correlation between killing with intent to use human parts for some ritual exercise and the sudden enrichment of persons linked to the killing.

We have had cases where the confessions of the witch doctors who asked for the human parts pointed to the fact that, those parts were useful for fixing quick wealth even though some of such assertions turned out to be fake.

With the advent of the social media and dawn of internet fraud or scam, some fraudsters have gone a step ahead to seek some diabolical or fetish addition to their criminal manipulation of the cyberspace.  Though scientifically, it is beyond comprehension how the blood or conjured parts of a human being can generate quick wealth, yet, it is already evidential that some killers have confessed to killing of innocent ones with the intention to use their parts for ritual that would ensure quick wealth.

What we now know as “Yahoo Plus” in Nigeria is a terminology that relates to the enhancement of cyber scam with some fetish indulgence like using any personal effect of a girl to induce her submission spiritually to the intentions of Yahoo boys in the business of making quick wealth.

In recent time, it was trending in the social media how female under wears  and other personal effects became items of target for internet fraudsters (Yahoo boys), who submit same to witch doctors for preparation of fetish elements towards becoming rich.  Ikorodu area of Lagos, some four years ago, was infested by the Badoo boys notoriously known for killing people and using white handkerchief to soak in their victims blood. It was gathered that such blood soaked handkerchief was used for money ritual by the sponsors of the killers who in turn were said to have been paid not less than N500,000 per handkerchief.

As more killers for money ritual emerge in our institutions of learning, cities, street corners and other places, the frightening aspect of it is the involvement of people who naturally are too young to talk about acquiring wealth at all cost.  For instance, what would a boy of 20 years or 17 years do with millions of naira whether legitimately or illegitimately acquired at a time his mates are pursuing educational ambition of becoming  doctors,  accountants engineers and so on in the higher institutions?

If not because of the moral degeneracy of our society and the culture of primitive accumulation by our public office holders with no serious sanctions from government, where- else could a teenager have learnt that money could buy their way in anything without following due process of life.

A society where an official in a public office whose salary is not more than N5million per annum for instance, builds a house worth N300million with nobody asking him how he got the money!  It is therefore, not surprising that upcoming Nigerians so desirous of quick wealth have resorted to getting same through killing for ritual in so far as they are celebrated with their money.

Now,  the larger society is the worse for it, as innocent boys and girls are slaughtered by their friends, parents, siblings and others for money rituals.  Some parents would now prefer to use any of their children for money ritual if only to change the fortune of the entire family! We have many cases already. Friends are betraying their loved ones, using them for money ritual without bathing an eyelid!

Where is Nigeria going from here?  Why do we allow this barbaric and despicable culture to be entrenched in our society? What can we do to eradicate it, because it is callous, obnoxious, inhuman and ungodly.

Now is the time for families to wake up and be hard on their children whose means of wealth at relatively young ages are questionable.  Now is the time for the law enforcement agents to be stricter in the investigation of all those youngsters driving exotic cars on our roads with no evidence of genuine source of wealth. Now is the time for authorities of our institutions of higher learning to ban the use of exotic cars on our campuses by anybody who cannot show evidence of genuine source of wealth. Now is the time for our churches in particular to shun the offerings and tithes of all young members whose sources of wealth are shrouded in secrecy. Now is also the time for the media to help in exposing persons flaunting their wealth in politics or social space when the source of such wealth remains unknown.

Killing for money making ritual as a callous culture must not be allowed to become part of our new normal nor acceptable way of life as a result of the economic challenges of contemporary time.

Let us resist it.