An Igbo trader at the popular Ladipo Market in Lagos, Frank Obidinma, told Sunday Telegraph that in his search for instant wealth, he did all manner of rituals. He said he had slept in odd places several times all in the bid to get rich quick.
“And that is why I can’t conclude that the people you see moving into cemeteries sleep there for lack of accommodation. At the same time, I can’t conclude that they are ghosts, athough, this may not be ruled out. Strange things happen in Lagos State likewise other states,” said Frank.
Frank, was negotiating with the dead when he opted to take a journey to the land of the dead in search of wealth and relevance, but surprisingly he has been waiting for eternity as the much desired wealth hasn’t come.
Instead, he was faced with the worst case scenario of his life. Fourteen years after the daring rituals, Frank has been seeking restitution in various churches, all to no avail.
There are other classes of ritualists, who still venture into other weird practices like sleeping in cemeteries. On this, women are not excluded, especially those who are seeking for the fruit of the womb and some others seeking powers to rule the world.
The victims are most often instructed to do these odds things. Our source added that: “In search of wealth and spiritual powers, Nigerians do weird things and often times, many die in the process.
Most times, relatives of money ritualists search frantically for their loved ones, not knowing they had long gone as a result of complications of money rituals.
Yes, people do sleep in cemeteries and even mortuaries. Another set of people sleep with corpses in mortuaries for money and power. “I was ravaged by poverty, but I broke out of the desire to do money rituals. I’m from Aguleri in Anambra State. I have a very wealthy brother who was never willing to help family relations financially.
Today, he is a manager with one of the biggest oil firms in Nigeria. He has fleet of cars and multiple properties in Lagos, while I still struggle to pay my house rent in a one room apartment in a Lagos suburb where I share toilet with other tenants.
“I used to trade at the Ladipo Spare Parts Market in Lagos until my unrepentant lust for wealth pushed me into money rituals. I was linked with a female spiritualist in Igala, Kogi State.
I was told that after performing the needed rituals, I would instantly get rich. With that in my mind, I left for Igala. “When I got to Kogi State, I was directed to a lonely forest, where I saw other people seeking wealth like me. We were about six.
At the starting point of the rituals, we were told by the ritualist that anybody who concluded the rituals would be stupendously rich. I never knew God was out there to frustrate and teach me a bitter lesson of my life.
I went through the harrowing torture for nothing. For me, the ritualist gave me a shovel together with one other person. We were asked to dig a shallow grave, and we never had the premonition that after digging, we were going to be buried alive for three days.
“When we finished, the ritualist and some of his workers brought two caskets and asked us to go into it. He said we would sleep in the caskets for three days to get rich.
I was very scared but my lust for riches dismissed that initial fear and I entered the casket. It was indeed a terrible experience. “I didn’t know what really happened but I discovered that when the casket was unearthed and we were brought out, the other person that went into the casket same time with me had died.
I was told that we had spent just two, out of the mandatory three days, buried alive. It was at this point that I realised that I would have also been dead if the coffin had remained buried for three days.
“After this encounter with death, the much clamoured wealth didn’t come as I continued battling for my survival. I was as good as dead. Until date, there is nothing to show for the deadly money rituals, but I know that the hand of God was in what happened to me.
I have been living from hand to mouth, surviving with the help of my closes, friends who regularly give me food. “After all that I did, the wealth didn’t come and that was when I was badly hit by poverty.
This happened 14 years ago, and I am yet to get over the harrowing experience. This haunted me badly. But I thank God for the salvation of my soul as I am now a born again Christian. Yet I am nowhere near who can be called a rich man and presently.
I believe God strongly for His mercies on my life. I give God the glory that I didn’t die like my ritualist colleague in the forest of Kogi State. At that time, If I could agree to be buried alive in a casket, I would have equally agreed to sleep in a cemetery for one month.
“Things are happening in this country and we can’t conclude that some of those who have turned the grave yard and the lawns at the Ikoyi Cemetery to their home are doing so due to problems of accommodation.
“Those still thinking of embarking on dangerous money rituals may not be as lucky as I was. To them, it might be death. But God preserved me for a purpose. I’m currently paying dearly for my past foolishness.”
Many of the occupants seen sleeping in Lagos cemeteries, where they scaled the fence to sleep at night and jump out in early morning, are not there for pleasure.
Some went to mourn their long departed loved ones, while others may be there to activate their charms, with another sizable number there for money rituals.
At the Ikoyi Cemetery, people are seen scaling over the high fence late in the evening and jumping out in the early hours of the day. Some of the traders along the axis at the Obalende end, told our reporter that those who jump into the cemetery do so because of lack of accommodation.
Further investigations by Sunday Telegraph revealed that, other people, seeking mystic and political powers, fame and riches also go there for spiritual cleansing and fortification.
It was also gathered that some other criminals who had committed murders and are being disturbed by the spirit of their victims find their way to the cemetery for spiritual solutions to their problems.
In the traditional Igbo parlance “Udenne gba ona’ (Vulture with ring on his leg), those who see the spirit of their departed loved ones go to the grave to do certain incantations and spiritual exercises that would stop the spirit from appearing to them.
Some of these secret visitors to the cemetery collect sand from the grave of their victims, while others will be required to lay a wreath on respective graves for atonement.
Our source noted that there are several other spiritual reasons people visit cemeteries or graveyards, adding that the spirit of a violent man could be invoked and sent on revenge.
Some, he said, would be to appease them, especially if the dead laid a potent curse on the person. “The person can seek to appease the spirit of the dead and avert the dangers of such curses and this is why we try to reconcile people of such differences before death,” he added.
A local herbs seller at Obalende area of Lagos Island, Bukola Ashafa, told Sunday Telegraph: “I used to see a particular person here for some time now and I have not seen him lately. I don’t know what must have happened to him.
I also see mostly men here and I don’t know if they are traders on the Island or not. Whether they are spirit or not, I don’t know. It is possible that the people could have gotten accommodation elsewhere before they left the cemetery.
Last August, it was gathered that a white garment prophet took a woman believed to be barren to the Ikoyi Cemetery and had sexual intercourse with her for the sake breaking the problem of delayed pregnancy.
According to our source, during the intercourse, the woman saw the prophet holding a locked padlock in his hand. This helpless woman’s problems doubled as she is yet to conceive, years after the illicit sex with the prophet.
In another development, another woman was asked by a Sabbaterian prophet in Badagry to sleep on the grave of a dead prophet believed to be powerful during his lifetime, so that her problems could be solved.
But the woman, instead of getting solution, started seeing strange spirits so much that today, she is mentally unstable. According Obaderi Eleri, such moves were to cleanse her womb for a new seed from the prophet.
Meanwhile, sleeping in cemeteries is not a practice endemic to Nigeria alone, as Sunday Telegraph’s investigations revealed that nearly 6,000 English people slept in London cemeteries at some point between 2011- 2012.
Many of these people slept between the rungs for financial solutions and most often, they become destitutes and can only beg for living. According to Head of the charity Crisis, Mick Bateman, there has definitely been an increase in rough sleeping this year and the cuts in benefits are obviously putting more people into hardship, “so we are expecting to see more people with us after Christmas.
We pray that after Christmas, the (winter) weather will not be too harsh on them.” Moreso, a Lagos-based traditionalist, Baba Ayuba Hassan, said: “There are many ways of activating charms all over the world. In Nigeria, some will be asked to drop sacrifices at odd places including T-junctions. Some will be asked to use some animals to that effect.
Some will be asked to make love to mad people. Some are asked to wash their faces with the same water used in washing dog face so that they can see far like dogs.
The last one is mostly done by overzealous native doctors and fake pastors who want to see visions where there are none. “Sleeping in cemetery is one of the common ways of communing with the gods and spirit of the dead.
Sometimes, when you see people in a burial ground, you think they are ghosts, but they are far from it. If you look closely, they might be your brother or your neighbours.
Also, somebody might be asked to get sand from the grave of someone whose spirit is disturbing, in a bid to trap the spirit and chain it.” He added, “Those who sleep in cemetery for spiritual purposes, claiming to be invoking the spirits of departed relatives, are dealing with mere familiar spirits that would put them in perpetual bondage.”
It was also gathered that these people sometimes, bribe cemetery attendants to allow them do their unholy business. “Some of them mix up with people coming to bury their dead, and when they gain entrance, they will go for their own businesses unhindered.
We can’t totally police the cemetery, we do it the way best known to us,” said one the attendants at the cemetery. Also, Michael Whoba, an Estate Developer in Lagos, said, for those who sleep in the cemeteries for lack of accommodation, the only way out of such scourge in the country is by joint partnership of government and private sector to ensure that Nigerians don’t sleep in odd places for any accommodation related reason.
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