Thread by @GbengaWemimo

The hypocrisy of this generation is galling, we are blaming teenagers for going into rituals and voodoo in order to make money
We are blaming their parents
We are crying foul
We are removing ourselves from the equation
As if we were not the ones who opened pandora's box
That's

very funny
Who made money the ultimate thing in life?
Was it not this generation?
Who started and glorified the "yahoo yahoo" fraud?
Was it not this generation?
Was it not Oluwhatever that sang Yahooze, wasn't the song the DJ's favorite during the last presidential campaign

The generation before us prioritized education
Of course, there were ritualists and fraudsters but most of them tried the legal route first and waited to have a break until they lost faith in their late 20s/ early thirties and turned to crime
In fact, most of the early fraudsters

became fraudsters while they were abroad (studying or working) before bringing their ill-gotten gains home to Nigeria and gaining notoriety
Most parents in Nigeria weren't rich in terms of money but they were very wealthy when it came to religion
Were we not the generation that

stabbed religion in the heart?
Churches sprang up in the 90s due to unemployment, I have studied the data over and over again, most of them didn't endure but it spoke to the motive of their founders
They were fraudsters at heart, who only hid behind pulpits to work on their marks

My former mechanic once had a candid discussion with me, he wanted me to loan him two hundred thousand naira
I asked him what he needed the money for
He said "Three generations shouldn't suffer in poverty. My father died poor, I am poor, and the way things are looking my son will

end up poor too
So i want to buy him a laptop and an internet modem
I want him to start doing yahoo"
The man was in his late thirties, his son was 17
I took over the payment of the boy's school fees after that, I made sure he finished his OND/HND and got a job with a printing

press
The man thought I was being kind but I don't kid myself
He was desperate and I knew for sure someone out there would be the casualty of his desperation
I have been in the company of pastors, (White Garment Church) shepherds
I was a youth pastor at this time
I got invited to

a special programme to minister
After my ministration one of the pastors approached me and said "Do you know they told us from our headquarters not to do spiritual work (making soaps, perfumes, and special totems) for yahoo boys and fraudsters?
Do you think this is fair?
Is it

the meager tithes and offering that we will now be depending on? Has anyone ever built a cathedral with tithes and offerings? Didn't the rich ones making the rules now do spiritual work for drug barons, soldiers being commissioned for work outside Nigeria and police officers

seeking promotion?
Was that not how they built their cathedrals and made it in this life?
My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, I was just looking at him
Other pastors joined us, (This discussion happened at Ogere, in Ogun State) and they were nodding
I just bought my second

car at this time
A Toyota Camry
They assumed since I walk in supernatural dimensions and preach the supernatural realities of the believer, I knew one or two things that made me rich outside of the gospel
They didn't know the advantage I had at that time was my wife
She had a car

when i met her and she had started her glorious career
The car they saw was 70% bought from her savings
We had even sold the old one before adding some money to buy the new one
Only I could have married a woman like that, most of them married beneath them so that they can control

their wives and play "The man"
I married a glory and I didn't dim her brightness
I sat them down and advised them to start monthly contributions among themselves
I told them doing spiritual work for criminals makes them accessories to the crime committed and they will answer for

their decisions one day
I assured them that supporting a criminal is not an act of faith and the gains from such will not bring glory to God
Some of them got the message (they're still doing the monthly contribution till today)
The one that didn't get the message approached an

pastor of another white garment church to learn some tricks and went mad a few months later
All in the pursuit of money
I remembered a young man telling me to come to Egbeda, Festac, and other areas in Lagos where the main job of many was internet fraud
As an undergraduate, I was

privileged to visit one of the most expensive private Universities in Edo state
I was part of the team representing my school for the Nigeria Private University Games
I saw cars, exotic cars, parked in a long row
I was told the cars belong to students, most of them couldn't take

the cars home because their parents didnt even use such a car at home
That was the foundation we laid
This is on us and we must begin to retrace our footsteps towards God
In the last few years, we have seen the evil teenagers and young adults are capable of if left to their own

cultism, fraud, rituals, rape, and murder is nothing to them
They are too young to understand the concept of consequence
Too childish to understand the meaning of discretion
and our generation is spurring them on
I have seen too many parents looking the other way because of lack

I have seen fathers practically pretend they couldn't see that their daughters had entered into prostitution while pretending they were working as event waitresses because of food
I have seen mothers pretend their sons won some money playing sports bet rather than call them to

order
Illiterate parents especially are very easy to fool, they have no clue what their children did with the computer
Some even assume their children were "working" hard.
A young man bought two Benz jeeps in Ketu, Lagos State
The cars were delivered on a Sunday
When his father

saw the cars, the man packed his bags and moved back to Ado Ekiti, he said he knew the cars arrived only a few days before the handcuffs
The boy's mother cursed him for refusing to celebrate their son's success
The matter was dragged to church a few weeks later when the man when

the man insisted he wanted a divorce if his wife wouldn't move to the village with him
What can a pastor do here?
Counsel?
Pray?
Be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit and exercise a lot of discretion
Within six months, the boy was arrested and the cars seized but it was

not a deterrent for others
I know people, young people, who were deliberately sponsored by their family members and sent to Malaysia so that they can learn and do internet fraud
If you meet a yahoo fraudster today and tell him what he is doing is wrong, he will most likely reply

you by saying his victims are insured and therefore there is no real casualty
We have bred a monster that does not understand the meaning of consequence and we will have to put a leash on this monster by returning to God as a generation.

-GSW-

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