Ritual killings, religion and Nigerians

Sometime in 2018, a grandmother in Benin City, who somehow remained nameless in news reports, carried her Bible and went by her daughter’s house so they could go to church together. When she pushed open the door, what she saw was the ruination of three generations of her family. In the room was her daughter, dead as dead can be, and over her was her grandson, Akpobome Samuel, 18, pants down, violating his mother’s corpse.

A national newspaper titled its report on that abomination ‘Teenager kills mother, makes love with her corpse.’ ‘makes love,’ they said. Where is the love in that?

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There is only what the Italian painter, Pietro Pajetta called “The Hatred” in his brilliant 1896 painting of a grave robber about to desecrate the corpse of a woman he was pulling out of her coffin.

What led Akpobome Samuel to strangle his mother at dawn, keep her corpse for two days and inflict necrophiliac acts on her? Well, a juju man had told him he could make him richer than Dangote if he did that.

These things, dreadful as they sound, happen too frequently.

In February this year, after Soliu Majekodunmi, 18, was arrested alongside three others, for beheading his girlfriend, Sofiat Kehinde, and burning her head in a money ritual act, the Nigerian House of Representatives asked the government to declare a state of emergency on ritual killings.

Well, it did not start today; but the recent upsurge in such cases could be attributable to one of two things. Either there is an increase in the acts with more people getting desperate for wealth or the prevalence of social media has allowed greater and instant dissemination of news of such sordid deeds.

But Deputy Minority Leader, Toby Okechukwu, during the debate in the house put the blame on Nollywood’s glamorisation of the power of juju, money rituals and sudden riches. For those too desperate for such lifestyles, the swiftest ways of making such money are to either become a fraudster like Hushpuppie or a politician. The other alternative is to work hard and hope or clubber somebody, harvest their body parts and hope a juju man, an alfa or a pastor, who often is a broke-arse wretch can make one wealthy overnight. Some people choose the latter option.

What is not being discussed a lot is the role religion or, in a broad sense, our belief systems have been exploited to perpetuate this trend.

In 2016, in the Ugwuaji Area of Enugu, a pastor, whose name was not mentioned, was arrested after he buried three tricycle riders alive in the foundation of the church he was building. At the end of 2021 in Ogun, Alfa Tunde Olayiwola was arrested with a human skull he said was for money rituals. Days later, the police reported that he had slumped and died in their custody.

It is a shame that religious preaching in Nigeria has focused on prosperity instead of piety and facilitated crimes like rape, sexual abuse and ritual killings, sometimes on sacred altars. Such a toxic buffet of religion-backed criminality has resulted in a religious society riddled with churches and mosques but a Godless one swarming with ritual murderers, paedophiles, looters and criminals who return to places of worship to give thanks for the successful execution of their crimes. 

It is worrying now finding teenagers and young adults being swept up in the dangerous tide of avarice and desperation.

A few months ago, I saw a disturbing video of a young man confidently discussing how he would happily murder both or either of his parents or even his friend who was recording him if it was required of him to make him wealthy. He didn’t care who saw the video, he said. I think this is because he did not fear the consequence of his utterances.

Aside from greed and desperation for quick wealth for little effort, there are things that help perpetuate this notion. The fact is that the Nigerian society, through a mix of culture, belief systems and economic realities, has been shaped in a way that does not guarantee reward for effort, that allows the exploitation of people and fails to protect others, that offers little or no consequence for crimes, that celebrates sudden wealth without question, that demands no accountability (in the way that a public officer or politician who owns no known business has more money in his bank account than a state’s annual budget) and instead of asking questions, our society chants praise songs at them for crumbs. A society in which law enforcement does not do due diligence when cases like this come up.

It is difficult to put a finger on one thing that is causing this perversity. It is a collection of things that must be tackled collectively and systematically. 

While Akpobome Samuel has been arrested for what he did to his mother, what about the person who encouraged him to commit the crime? What happened to that pastor in Enugu? I can’t find reports of his conviction seven years down the line? What are the chances that he will even face diligent prosecution from the law when the police can’t see to it that justice is done when one of theirs is the victim?

Let me tell you what happened. In Jos a couple of years ago, a guard believed that the locked house he was hired to watch was stashed with dollars. If he broke the house and stole the money, he would be hounded as a thief. So the best option was for the money to be stolen without the house being broken into. His genius idea was to find people who have the magical ability to teleport through walls.

To acquire this ability, the interested thieves consulted a malam who promised to fashion for them an invisibility amulet if, among other things, they could bring him a human eye.

This is where it gets interesting.

The would-be thieves went searching for a victim who could be parted with his eyes. They just happened to find a drunk mobile police officer, vulnerable and in an isolated location, knocked him over the head, murdered him and harvested his eyes. 

While the malam was experimenting and failing in fashioning the amulet, the police investigation soon led them to the suspects. They were arrested and charged to court. 

Did they get the death sentence? Were they hanged?

As I write, those suspects are walking free. Why? Well, over several court appearances, the police prosecuting team failed to turn up to convince the court of the men’s complicity in the crime. After repeated adjournments, the police prosecutor failed to show up. And when the suspects’ lawyer asked for the case to be dismissed, there was no prosecution lawyer to oppose that. In the end, the judge dismissed the case. Takurunkus!

Yes, ritual killings are pervasive and Nigeria needs to do more to secure the lives of its people and educate them better not to be exploited by charlatans.

However, the major culprit in this pestilence has to be the failure of the system or Nigeria as a country. Because where healthcare, security and basic services are inaccessible to the average citizen and where wealth, ill-gotten or otherwise, allows one to provide and access these basic services, the desperate pursuit of wealth becomes a survival response. The criminal pursuit of wealth becomes an even more attractive option than being an upright member of society.

We will continue to have these problems until we study and address the reasons why a high number of young people are so desperate for wealth that such crimes become attractive options for them.