Sola Adeyeye

By Sola Adeyeye

I am a sad man. Earlier, I posted here a video of men and women bathing naked in a flithy stream. Since then, I have received two other unsolicited videos of such ritualist activity. In addition, I received a video of an Ifa priest in his repertoir of divination on the outcome of Hausa-Yoruba conflict.

I am not sure whether the videotaped divination was a summon to forget military tactics like weaponry and surveillance. Centuries ago, European merchants with superior weaponry and military tactics hauled human cargoes from Africa to far-away continents and islands. The only Ifa priests that did not end on the slave ships were those that were smart enough to vote with their feet!

Ifa must know the value and limitation of a one-sided pacificism. When your homes and farms are repeatedly invaded by marauders and vandals, the logical response should be how to effectively and permanently resist, repel and terminate such criminalities. All crimes should be cuftailed in every part of Nigeria. The ethnic identity of criminals ought not to be a matter of weighty consideration.

If Ifa chooses not to resist criminals and vandals by weaponizing, militarizing or else engage in diplomacy, its priests will be among the earliest to be captured. Orunmila and Opele are as ineffective as their cowrie shells!

The men and women nakedly undertaking “money baths” so that they would acquire wealth are not laughable; they evoke tears! What do Lamido Sanusi and Okonjo-Iweala know about about generating wealth?!

If money baths and other silly rituals could generate money, Africa would be the most wealthy segment of humanity. Alas, our continent is by far the poorest segment of the human race. Whereas Africans comprise 17% of humanity, the GDP of our continent is only 3-4% of global GDP. On the basis of GDP, not a single African country is among the top 25 economies in the world. This is a pointer to the failure of superstitions for creating wealth! No African country ranks higher than Thailand in GDP!

Sadly, many churches have become citadels of heresy. Aside from rascally preachers that tout the prosperity gospel in manners that hypnotize their congregants into idleness, there are now ritualists using the name of Jesus to tout diabolical practices. Needless to say, the men and women taking the “money baths” in flithy rivers and streams, have volunteered to be infected with protozoans, yeasts, other fungi and bacteria!

There is the silliness that humans can be made to carry a guord or calabash of soap and that when you call their name, they would vomit money. I have heard university graduates saying such utter nonsense. But none of them has agreed to take me to where this phenomenon can be demonstrated.

If anyone does, I will volunteer that the calabash of money soap be put on my head. Let the demonstrator keep the first ten million naira that I vomit on the first day. Thereafter, all of the money that I vomit daily, mostly dollars and euros, should be given to Government to revamp Nigerian schools.

Since returning to Nigeria in 2002, I have repeatedly offered myself to anyone who can prove the efficacy of carrying soap to get money. Like Oluorogbo, let me be the sacrifice to free Nigeria from poverty. But first, show me that this works.

No one has taken my offer!

-Senator Sola Adeyeye, a Biology Professor, wrires from Abuja