By Jude Michael
Famous Nollywood actor and showbiz personality, Barr Kanayo O. Kanayo, has warned Nigerian youths against ritual killings in the hope of becoming rich.
Kanayo who has become very popular for his roles in movies, acting as a ritualist, and making human sacrifices for wealth, said there was no established connection between making human sacrifices and becoming rich.
Kanayo spoke as a guest of IKENGA ONLINE November 2023 Town Hall Meeting, a virtual meeting which holds every month, and powdered by an online news platform, Ikenga Online.
Speaking on the Topic: Rituals, Riches, and Realities: The Myths of Money-Making and the Dignity of Labour, the veteran actor who is also known as KOK, and has through his roles in movies acquired the sobriquet; Nnanyi Sacrifice, urged youths to better indulge in hard work.
Speaking about the rampancy of ritual killings, he said: ‘These people (youths) have upped their ante and it is not about what they watch (movies).
‘There is no truth in the fact that a man living in a thatched house will ask you to kill your girlfriend and sleep with her to make money.
‘The Yahoo (scam) we knew many years back was writing letters and promising deals that were Utopian. We know many people who are in public office today who were part of it. I will not want to mention names.
‘But today people are told that the in-thing is yahoo pro max, which involves killing someone, eating the heart of the person and washing it down with Hennessy, and the belief that you will make money. I can’t see any connect in that with making money. Money is made through hard work,’ Kanayo insisted.
Speaking about how he made money overnight to build a mansion in his hometown, which was a surprise to many, KOK said he did not indulge in any sacrifice.
‘I laid the foundation of my house in 2015, and in 2016, Globacom owned by Mike Adenuga, signed me as one of those to be a part of a nationwide campaign it was holding.
‘The money was huge. It involved performances in many cities, but sometimes they counted 10 cities and paid us upfront, even before we started visiting those cities.
‘So, I made a lot of money and built my house. I can say I made sacrifices to build that house because as at that time, I had the option of buying a brand new 2015 Range Rover. If I had bought it, today, I would have been seen as someone who is driving an old Range Rover.
‘So the sacrifice I made was that I left the Range Rover and completed my house. That was the sacrifice I made,’ KOK jocularly remarked.