Youths Engagement In Money Rituals Alarming

The way youths engage in money rituals in the Delta State is alarming

Most youths in Nigeria, especially from the southern part are desperate to make quick money so they can associate or join the likes of others who are seen by the society as successful.

To make quick money, almost all the boys are involved in criminality; a catalyst to  achieving their vision of becoming rich at a young age. These rituals involve using animals or human parts depending on the prescription of the spiritualist, otherwise called a voodoo man in the western world.

Most of these youths either resort to a traditional approach, online-scams or in their offices or market places under the umbrella of buying and selling.

Many people, both local and forigner have seen that it is only those deeply involved in online scam that do rituals, even our politicians are sometimes worse than these youths because as soon as election is near, you start seeing dead bodies littering every nook and cranny with essential parts missing. Those ritualistic youths that falls under the category of online scammers otherwise called “Yahoo Boys” relies on these mystical powers or traditional Juju to get people ready to fall for get-rich-quick scams.

The truth remains that supernatural powers and practices have been in existence in Africa. Africans believe that success is achieved via the intervention of spiritual means. Many even make use of charms and amulets in either their cars or houses or body with the conviction that it will protect them and not allow misfortune such as stillbirth, poverty, accident, diseases, sickness or death come close to them.

In other hand, we should all take note that the 1999 constitution as amended, enthrusted the federal, state and local governments with the welfare and security of citizens but the fact remains that the Government has failed Nigerians in their statutory duties. You can see that youths are driven to criminality because the Government that ought to enlighten, educate and empower them does not even care about them. Hence, you see youths involved in all sorts of standards of get rich quick.

You can see there is a problem in Nigeria. We have more than 13.2 million kids and youths that are out of school, hence the criminality will continue to thrive due to lack of education.

We also have millions of poor graduates, and the number increases yearly. In Delta State for instance, the Government  created more universities without creating industries that will employ these graduates as soon as they graduate. He will end up producing more youths who have the tendency to go into money making via rituals.

Why can’t the Government fix the electricity problem of Nigeria? Do you know that if we have Power infrastructure fixed that the Nigeria Economy will grow astronomically? Though we also have to fix the insecurity issues because if there is peace or security, we will have an influx of foreign investors trooping into Nigeria like the Dubai people are experiencing in recently.

The Government could also invest in Agriculture by empowering farmers. Potential farmers could not access the facility because the process is politicized mostly in Delta State. Platforms are not given to those in the ghetto. The government fails to reach out via massive campaigns on radio, jingles, street walk and campaigns in rural and urban areas, billboards with contact phone numbers to call and be hooked up with a program etc , though biometrics will have to be applied in these admissions into various vocational skills or Agriculture.

I must not forget to reiterate that we have unemployable graduates who fall into the range of skilled and unskilled workers because many youths pass through the university and not the university through them, few days ago, an undergraduate and a final year student of UNIBEN wore a branded polo with the inscription “Aggressive malpractice brought me this far” – Alleged, the school on seeing this took a drastic step that would deter others in the nearest future from engaging in such misguided campaigns by insisting she will rewrite her exams from 200 level to final year to ensure she will not be a half-baked or unemployable graduate from UNIBEN, this was a good measure indeed. We still have many of such youths out there who are not employable hence will be willing to resort to rituals if the opportunity arises.

The other day on May 26, 2021, a suspected Yahoo boy, who allegedly killed his twin brother at Oleh, headquarters of Isoko South Local Government Area, Delta State, was arrested by police operatives upon their neighbours calling the attention of the Police.

While on June 11, 2021 a suspected ritualist, Kabiru Oyeduntan, 39, narrated how he assisted his friend, identified as Akin (alias clumsy) to butcher his girlfriend who came to visit despite eventually rejecting his portion of her body parts.

We cannot continue like this, the Government has a lot of work to do, We hope these solutions we preferred via this feature will be looked into by both the Federal, State and Local Governments of Nigeria as soon as possible.

Comrade Victor Ojei (Wong Box)
Public Relations Officer,
Delta State Coalition of Civil Societies.