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Money ritual: Superstition taken too far

SIR: Because we are a society that feels more comfortable with superstitions and indoctrination instead of education, we may continue to treat or view everything as if they are spiritual without bothering to ask rational questions when issues such as this come to our knowledge.

Whoever is familiar with activities of most young people engaging in cybercrime in recent times would easily acknowledge the pervasiveness of drug abuse among them but because we have a terrible educational system and high rate of illiteracy which are limiting abilities of most citizens to engage in critical thinking and arrive at rational or logical conclusions, we are confined to think most of the irrational or deviant behaviours of people are effects of some rituals without having or submitting them to some psychiatric or psychological evaluation processes.

If humanity is same all over the world, why are these cases not rampant in prosperous countries where illiteracy is not pervasive?

Botswana is a proper example of African country with high level of literacy and stable socioeconomic and political atmosphere that can be used as example to suggest that absurdities will continue to be promoted wherever there’s mass illiteracy and poverty among people.

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Poverty is so terrible a menace that it reduces the capacity of humans who have to deal with its extreme impacts that it impedes their abilities to function like humans because those acutely affected rarely see oddity in most of the things that they are compelled to do out of desperation. Poverty is so tortuous that some of it inspires self-hate in humans which invariably mean such people may not likely feel they have reasons to love other humans.

In fact poverty can equate with certain mental conditions when it is experienced in its harshest and rawest forms.

Now imagine someone who is filled with anger that comes with poverty also suffering the fate of ignorance, I can only leave the reader to form an opinion of what the behavioural tendencies of a victim of extreme poverty and ignorance/illiteracy would be.

Before the advent and this wide usage of the internet and in fact the social media, I can recall very well how some strange births were being reported everywhere with claims such as children being born with holy books in their hands, having rosaries in their hands or around their necks with all these births not occurring at any registered or recognized medical facility whereas such news have ceased to be reported simply because people now have access to different modern electronic devices that can expose such purported weird occurrences.

Nigeria stands to be killed with ignorance and poverty if nothing is done about the issue of education because most of these cases are nothing but situations that require application of different scientific and technological skills which we lack hugely as a people.

  • Abbey Adenuga,

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