Youths and psychology of more

In recent times, there has been an increase in ritual killings in Nigeria. The social media and the internet are full of scary news every day. Most heartbreaking is that this problem has moved down even to young people. We have seen repeatedly in the news how boys under the age of 16 have been found to engage in some form of ritual for wealth making. Three tightly linked factors, in my opinion, have contributed to the increase of this evil we have seen in recent times and I will present them in the order in which they are linked.

The first challenge we have is that our society started watering down key values; we have stopped teaching values that are responsible for creating responsible men and women through ages. I remember when I told my father some years ago that I was involved in school politics. The first thing he did before asking for further details was to warn me seriously against embezzlement; that warning was so serious that I still remember it clearly today. The message I got from that was that this old man would never have my back if I ever found myself in such trouble. Hard work and earning your living legitimately were also values that our society of today has lost almost completely. Then there is not enough deterrence. We have lost key values, and then when people do the unthinkable, there’s not enough deterrence to warn and disenfranchise the potential others. Yes, our judicial system has sent many of them to prison, but we need all the potential criminals to see an example of where they will eventually end. Also, there is the factor of increase in the number of fraudsters. Every fraudster is a potential ritualist. As the number of fraudsters increases in our society, so will the number of ritualists.

Every human being wants more. More money, more influence, and so on. The difference, however, is how you are chasing your “more”. A person whose only means is to make a living using legitimate means will normally pursue “more” using smarter means that are legit.

On the other hand, the fraudster that is looking for quick means without putting in any work will pursue his own “more” in the dirtiest ways possible. There comes a time in the life of every human when the available money to the individual is no longer enough, it’s either that amount of money can no longer cater to your increased need or it cannot give you the sense of security and worth that you yearn for. It is normal at this point to want to scale up your investments, leverage market dynamics to make more money, change jobs to higher-paying ones, the list goes on.

Adeola Ibigbemi,

Lagos.

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