The Ogun special prayer

AS economic gloom aggravates social precarity across the country, Nigerians have been resorting to various drastic measures to make ends meet. In the attendant scenario, countless vices of privation have emerged, even as all manner of spiritual tricksters and charlatans are capitalising on the misery and desperation of the commoner. To say that the average Nigerian is paying a high price for the desperate situation in the country would be an understatement.

The recent incident involving 21-year-old Sukura Owodunni is a perfect illustration. According to media reports, Ms. Owodunni was tasked by her pastor, one Taiwo Odebiyi of the Cherubim and Seraphim Church, Maberu Parish, Sagamu, Ogun State, to buy some items for a “special prayer session” during which, ostensibly, a divine solution would be found to her problems. However, instead of a solution, what Ms. Owodunni ended up with was an experience she would never forget as the unknown perfume Pastor Odebiyi had doused her with suddenly caught fire in the middle of the prayer.

While Ms. Owodunni will at least live to tell the story of how she got burnt in her desperate quest for a spiritual remedy, many others have not been so lucky. In May 2021, Dubai-based socialite, Kayode Badru, lost his life in similar circumstances after being badly burnt in the course of a “special prayer session” at the Imole Parish of the Celestial Church of Christ in the Alagbado area of Lagos State. He gave up the ghost at a Gbagada hospital where he had been rushed for treatment.

As harrowing as these cases are, they do not begin to capture the utter desperation that has put many Nigerians at the mercy of quacks and sundry spiritual entrepreneurs. No day goes by without a report in the media or on social media of ritual killings involving people looking for quick wealth and going beyond the pale to get it. While it is true that ritual killings and similar perversions are motivated by desperation to get rich, it should be remembered that they couldn’t possibly exist without the general conviction as to the efficacy of such spiritual malpractices. If there is anything the average Nigerian believes wholeheartedly, it is that every form of wealth has a foundation or authority in the spiritual. This belief would not be a problem but for the fact that it tends to make people ignore hard work, diligence, and long-term investment. After all, why work or apply yourself to any craft if all you have to do in order to be wealthy is to perform a ritual or acquire some spiritual licence?

To be sure, wealth, or success in general, is not without a spiritual dimension. Our model of spirituality and wealth is the protestant ethic, which emphasises work first, followed by spiritual blessing. This is the exact opposite of what prevails in Nigeria today where people abstain from work and hope somehow to use spirituality as a short cut to wealth. The unfortunate fact is that many so-called religious leaders in the country today actively encourage this perversion.

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