There is nothing like ‘money rituals’ – TheNigerialawyer

Abimbola Adelakun([email protected]^[1])

The gruesome murder of the Lagos State University student, Miss
Favour Daley-Oladele, by a self-deluded young man in pursuit of an
illusion of “money rituals” is saddening. According to reports,
Favour’s boyfriend, Owolabi Adeeko, had allegedly connived with a
pastor, Segun Philips, who promised to make a potion that would
magically draw money for Adeeko and his mother. Now that they have
been busted, the pastor claimed the ritual failed because “the
spirit did not bring any money.”

I am uncertain if he genuinely believed that money would
magically surface or he was merely making things up for the press,
but here is the truth: There is nothing like money ritual. There
has never been, and there never will be.

There is nobody that claims that “money ritual” is real that can
also substantiate it. The evidence people tender about its efficacy
is typically reportorial, or some fantasy they picked up from home
movies. Meanwhile, Nollywood filmmakers too have never seen money
rituals work either. What they rehash are urban myths and similar
tales. Nobody, I repeat, nobody can make money come out of thin air
or conjure it from another location. The so-called prophet also
promised Adeeko’s mother she would be getting contracts. That too
is impossible. Nobody gets contracts because they draw on
supernatural forces. They either get it because they keep company
with those that give out the contracts, or because they provide
unique services.

It is imperative we vigorously debunk such superstitions for the
sake of the poor people who fall prey to these grifters. Is it not
curious that with all the claims of efficacy of money rituals in
Africa, nobody can identify a single billionaire who made their
money from such magic? If spirits can bring cash or a decapitated
head stewed in magic potions can truly make anyone rich, why are
Africans still the poorest people in the world? Should the
beneficiaries of such magic not be standing shoulder to shoulder
with the billionaires of this world like Bill Gates and Mark
Zuckerberg? If it were possible to conjure money, no pastor or
shaman would render such a service to anyone and for a paltry sum
of N210,000 as Phillips collected. They would keep it for their own
benefit!

I am pretty sure that some readers already disagree with me on
this issue. Their belief in the viability of money rituals is,
honestly, understandable. We were socialised in a culture that
constantly bombarded us with such narratives. From popular culture
to religious houses, they told us stories of spirits who ran
errands that enriched certain people. But when you think about it
in a broader context, you find that these accounts of mystical
wealth thrive largely in African societies. From East to West,
Central, and South Africa, there are historical and sociological
strands that connect cultures where people believe money can be
magically produced. One is a history of poverty, exploitation, and
consequent disillusionment. While benighted folk are sagged down by
the shame of excruciating poverty, they also see the excessive
amount of wealth held by some other people on the other side of the
class divide. These fortunate folk, unlike them, thrive despite not
being engaged in the labour that is traditionally connected to
wealth generation.

When people do not see a rational link between what some wealthy
people do for a living and the bullion vans that drive money into
their compound, they begin to accept that there must be some truth
to the belief that spirits dispense favours. This belief is further
strengthened when religious leaders who cavort with corrupt
politicians to get their own share of resources also promote the
belief in miraculous money to sacralise their ill-gotten wealth.
Then popular culture too churns out stories of money rituals that
feed (off) these belief cycles, not because they know things for a
fact but because the stories are easy for cultural producers to
regurgitate without doing the hard work of plumbing the depths of
the mind to find compelling narratives.

Then, there is the media that uncritically reports stories of
“money rituals” to a credulous audience. I raised the issue of the
role played by the media in promoting these falsities years ago
when I wrote on the discovery of the ritualists’ den in Soka,
Ibadan. While reporters regaled us with tales of the horrors that
uncovered in that location, there was no in-depth investigation
into what actually went down in that place. Various reports of Soka
“house of horror” took it for granted that actual money ritual
activities happened, and that the victims were being used to
generate currencies. The reality could just be organ harvesting by
traffickers, but we do not know. And some other stories we hear
—such as women’s underwear being used for money rituals— are just
urban myths that got taken too seriously by perverts and the
gullible who started raiding everywhere for panties.

It is hard for an average European to believe in money rituals
in the same way as Africans. That is not because they are above
superstitions —no society in the world is immune to them— but
because they run a society where, over time, they have established
a logical connection between the factors of production, money, and
politics. Their social mechanisms are systematised, and because
productivity and money typically go together in their daily
experience, the belief in money conjuration will hardly find a
landing place in their imagination. In African societies where we
are far more of consumers than producers, we attach mysticism to
money because wealth generation in our culture is mostly based on
an extractive economy —we disembowel the earth for resources we can
sell— and the corruption that naturally follows such exchange. The
fantasy that some spirits can somehow bring money is spun by those
trying to find their way out of the disorganisation that
characterises life and the shrinkage of opportunities for upward
mobility.

Those who claim they can generate money for people through
rituals, and who demand human lives for that purpose, do so for
various reasons. One, they want to build a powerful reputation in
the minds of people. If they succeed, it pays off in other ways. By
asking for their clients to procure human body parts, they seduce
them into believing they have access to supernatural forces, and
that power is so potent that it requires human life to access.
Rituals that supposedly produce money or political power do not
work based on any such telepathic connections. Instead, its
spectacular effect manipulates people’s beliefs and obliges them to
take certain courses of action. Two, some of those who ask for a
human to be sacrificed are, in reality, psychopaths who want to
carry out their sick fantasies on unsuspecting victims. They not
only exploit the gullibility and desperation of their clients, but
they also use them to bring friends and relatives to them. Three,
they are abusing foundational beliefs. The superstitions about
money rituals and the sacrificial victims required have traceable
links to our African past. However, because they have never clearly
understood why our ancestors found those beliefs expedient for
their time, those histories become exploitable. In different parts
of Africa, hunchbacks, albinos, and even bald men regularly fall
victim to the enterprise of money rituals.

We should challenge these myths of money rituals and save our
lives from the machinations of evil imaginations. From Nigeria to
Tanzania to Malawi to Mozambique, poor people are being hunted
down. These predators who want to do money rituals need to be
educated out of their wits that have been addled by poverty and
ignorance. Those who want to enjoy the nicer things of life but
find themselves forever incommoded by crushing poverty need to
learn that their poverty is political and therefore, cannot be
magically resolved. We are the poorest continent in the world
because of politics, and our redemption will not come through
either magic or miracles but in reformative policies. We should
raise our voices and shout this loud enough so that more people do
not become unfortunate victims.