Nigerian ladies appear to be at the mercy of fetish people who want to use their pants for money spinning rituals

By Emeka Ejere

A female who finds herself in the hands of robbers in Nigeria today may be more mindful of her underclothes than her purse. That is how high in demand female panties have become lately among some young men for reasons yet to be fully established.

Just last week, one of two men who were caught with stolen panties belonging to a woman confessed to intending to use them for rituals. The two bus conductors, Peter Ayodele, 20; and Chibuzor David, 21, were arraigned in Lagos on Tuesday, February 12, for allegedly stealing three underwear belonging to a housewife.

Ayodele, a resident of Oshodi; and David, who lives in Ejigbo, Lagos, were charged with two counts of conspiracy and stealing before an Ikeja Magistrates’ Court. While Ayodele pleaded guilty to the offences, David pleaded not guilty.

M.O. Tanimola, the magistrate, ordered that Ayodele be remanded in Kirikiri Prisons pending review of the facts of the case and sentencing, while David was granted N80, 000 bail with two sureties in like sum.

Similarly, two security guards, Samuel Linus and Adekunle Ogundana, who allegedly stole two underwear belonging to the daughter of a clergyman within a church premises in Akure metropolis of Ondo State, were on January 17, paraded alongside suspected kidnappers by the Ondo State Police Command.

According to Femi Joseph, the state police spokesperson, the daughter of the clergyman had washed two of her pants and spread them on the line at about 8p.m. in the presence of the guards and by 6a.m., next day, the panties had disappeared.

Joseph said the suspects, who were attached to the orthodox church, were posted to the apartment, which was highly fortified by a private security outfit in the state. The suspects, however, denied complicity in the offence for which they were paraded.

The story making the rounds is that practitioners of the computer based fraudulent activity popularly known as yahoo…yahoo have taken it to another level, which is now regarded as yahoo plus.

Rumour has it that what these boys now do is to perform some rituals as a way of facilitating their ungodly activities. In other words, the rituals are to make their victims accede easily to their demands.

Unfortunately for the female folk, it is their panties that appeal most to the goddess of wealth that these get-rich-quick boys have chosen to serve. The trend has, more than ever before, made women the endangered species.

An average woman now lives in fear, guarding her panties jealously to avoid falling easy prey to the perpetrators of the heinous crime. There have been unverified stories of ladies who have been accosted at some points by strange men who only demanded that their pants be pulled off and surrendered.

There was another story (also unverified), that some of these boys now go about with new ladies’ pants, which they make their victims to wear and pull off immediately at gun point, just to get easy materials for rituals.

Little wonder investigations show that it is hard now to see female underwear spread outside to public view. Even on school campuses, female students who live within campus say they now not only wash and spread their pants inside their corners, they do so only when they are around.

“We are suspicious that these bad boys may have female accomplices,” Ijeoma Chukwu, a second year student of the University of Calabar, told Realnews.

Those living outside the campus are even more cautious. “Everybody in the neighbourhood is a suspect,” a female student of the Imo State University noted.

“I rather not watch my pants than turn to money for one idiot,” she added, obviously angry.

Realnews sought a random opinion of some Nigerians, most of whom women, on the matter.

Ngozi Emeka asked, “Is the best thing for ladies to do not to avoid wearing pants at all?”

“Let them go natural and avoid the problem of yahoo plus boys,” she jokingly added.

On her part, Uche Fezissi prayed and counselled ladies: “They can never succeed in the life of a prayerful person. For no evil fall against the faithful, shall prosper. Ladies, be prayerful and live a good life and you will have nothing to fear.”

Loretta Oisaghie said, “Yahoo boys now carry new pants o, force you to wear it at gun point. It happened in Ijebu Ode last week.”

Precious Alex laughed and cracked a joke, “Hahahahah, I no kuku dey wear pant again because the level wey them dey, them fit blow something for inside bus the ladies there go just pull pant give them.”

Onyeoma Lawrence said, “I only hear about this on social media. I have not heard about such case of missing pant in my hood.” He then joked, “Do you know the babalawo(herbalist) where they are taking the pants to? I have load of pants here. At least pants are better than one’s mum or relations.”

Unfortunately, the Nigeria Police Force, NPF, has outlined reasons it cannot investigate the menace of Nigerians stealing women pants and underwear for ritual purposes. Frank Mba, the force public relations officer, said cases involving stealing of pants for ritual purposes cannot be investigated because they are not empirically verifiable.

Speaking on the menace of get-rich-quick syndrome on Nigerian Television Authority, NTA, recently, Mba said: “Stealing of underwear for whatsoever reason is a recent phenomenon, before now, we had cases of rituals killings but we can’t investigate things that are not empirically verifiable except when there is convergence of the act like cases of murder or an attempt or related crimes.

“We are indeed in a trying time. It’s good to be positively ambitious but wanting to get rich quick with minimal skills, efforts and at a very short time is quite disturbing.

“We don’t investigate divination or morality except related acts that constitute a criminal offence. Apart from factors like unemployment etc what we have on home videos, TV programs and messages being sent out.

“Drug and substance abuses are strong conscience suppressors that influence our youth into these wicked acts of fetish and ritual killings for get-rich-quick. While we’ll continue to fight menace of drug abuse head-on, we want our youths to desist or be ready to bear the consequences.”

– Feb. 18, 2019 @ 05:50 GMT |