By Ifeanyi Raymond
Ritual is generally defined as a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, but not defined, by formalism, traditionalism, invariance, rule-governance, sacral symbolism, and performance. One of the most widely performed rituals in the world today is carried out by the Catholic Church where the priest raises the chalice during mass.
However, money ritual, which is mostly ‘rumored’ to be practiced in Nigeria and some parts of Africa, has yet to be assigned a distinctive definition. In some quarters it is seen or referred to as the act of using human body parts to acquire or in exchange for wealth. While most Nigerians believe in the act there are some question marks as to the genuine nature of the act where money is said to magically appear after performing certain rituals to a deity or god.
This notion is gotten off of Nollywood movies with the likes of Pete Edochie, Kanayo .O. Kanayo, Clems Ohameze, Yul Edochie, Zubby Michael etc involved in money ritual using human sacrifices in exchange for wealth and affluence. Many youths have been influenced by their roles in such movies with one arrested during the thick of the menace and he clearly to the press that he indulged in money rituals after watching Zubby Michael’s movies. These movies send out the wrong message as to its efficacy.
Dating back to the times of our fore-fathers, Amadioha for one was associated with every household in Igbo land before the foreboding of Christianity. Albeit, shrines to the deity still exist in some parts.
Amadioha is the Arusi or Agbara of thunder and lightning of the Igbo people of South Eastern Nigeria. He is amongst the most popular of Igbo deities and in some parts of Igboland, he is referred to as Amadiora, Kamalu (which is short for Kalu Akanu), Kamanu or Ofufe. Astrologically, his governing planet is the Sun. Metaphysically, Amadioha represents the collective will of the people. He is often associated with Anyanwu, who is the Igbo god of the Sun. While Anyanwu is more prominent in northern Igboland, Amadioha is more prominent in the southern part. His day is Afo, which is the third market day of the Igbo four-day week.
He often served as a personal shrine in a spirit of enterprise that brings wealth. Our ancestors who were majorly into farming would offer goats, tubers of yam and chickens as sacrifices to the deity in return for good harvest and good health. Currently that belief has been misconstrued as human sacrifices are alleged to being used by internet fraudsters, otherwise known as yahoo boys, who allegedly use human parts which are mixed with elixirs and/or potions given to them by a native doctor after visiting the shrine. This practice is mostly rampant amongst Nigerian youths, most of them yet to clock the age of 20 indulge in illicit acts under the guise of poverty which comes as a result of the poor economy of the country but still doesn’t justify their fraudulent activities.
In light of this, it would suffice to mention some alleged fraudsters some of which are in police custody others have being in and out. Notably are Ramon Olorunwa Abbas aka Hushpuppi, Obinwanne Okeke aka Invictus Obi and Ismaila Mustapha aka Mompha.
Hushpuppi was a major influence on today’s internet fraudsters embroiling their acts with rituals and human sacrifice allegedly. He always showed off his exotic cars, designer clothes and houses on social media with no record or traces of businesses or establishments yielding returns for him. He was eventually arrested by Dubai Police in June 2020 on various counts of internet fraud worth millions of dollars and later repatriated to the US and handed over to the FBI where he was to face trial. He has since pleaded guilty to the crimes.
Invictus Obi was a modest citizen and role model to youths. He was enlisted in the top rated young entrepreneurs in the world by Forbes. Little to say it was a shock when he was arrested on internet and wire fraud of over $200million; he initially pled not guilty but later struck a deal with the US Government and changed his plea to guilty, he is currently serving a 10-year sentence in a US prison.
Mompha was another social media big boy whom people especially youths used as a yardstick to success until his arrest in 2019. He was released on bail and has been in run-ins with the EFCC since then.
All these influences push youths into various acts of fraud and when that doesn’t work out they seemingly resort to human rituals and sacrifices which so many have come to disprove its existence with the latest outbreak of purported ritual killings in the country. An article in a national daily said “If it were possible to conjure money as our people believe, Africans would be the wealthiest people in the world. We are the poorest and the perennially backward continent partly because we seek supernatural solutions to issues that can be resolved through logic. Look at the recent drama in Ondo State where some people believed that some white clothes fell from heaven. Even when the textile owner insisted that a mere gust of wind blew the materials from where she hung them, people insisted they fell from heaven! That is the nature of our society—people looking for metaphysical explanations to clarify otherwise simple phenomena.
No magic whatsoever makes a business enterprise successful either. Africans who traffic in stories of how supernatural power has prospered certain business people do so largely to rationalize their economic situation while someone else within their community succeeds. They find it hard to accept that someone else, other people can succeed through the ethics of hard work, prudence, and sheer ingenuity, and so they reach for supernatural explanations to self-justify. While there is no logical link between money and rituals, the rising incidences of “ritual murders” in our society are worrying and we must account for the phenomenon.
By killing people, they get drawn into the relatively profitable trade in human body parts. So while the “ritual” itself does not bring them money, the trade in human body parts among their fellow seekers of magic money becomes the point of repeating the process. By killing as many people as possible, sometimes just to discard their bodies, the trade gets hyped. People do not need to see it work; they just need to believe and start relating to the phenomenon as true. Like the Ondo people who believe that clothes fell from heaven, no evidence to the contrary can persuade them.
It then poses the question; is money ritual an actual link to wealth or is it another mirage and fantasy?
