CELEBRITY GONE TO BUY A MONEY SNAKE AND POWER IN NIGERIA GONE HORRIBLY WRONG CALLS FOR HELP

CELEBRITY GONE TO BUY A MONEY SNAKE AND POWER IN NIGERIA GONE HORRIBLY WRONG CALLS FOR HELP

Celebrity gone to buy a money snake and power in Nigeria gone horribly wrong

This is an anonymous confession pulled from a friend-of-a-friend who still can't stop thinking about it. Names are left out — the story is too raw, and the people involved asked to stay unnamed. Read it as a warning, or as a true-crime whisper. Either way, it still makes my skin crawl.

He told her over a late-night call — the girlfriend who lives in South Africa — that he was excited. They had been promised a money snake and “power”: endless success, a bank balance that never thinned, doors opening like magic. The people who led him there painted it as a simple ritual, one that would change his life forever. He was almost laughing on the phone with her, giddy at the thought.

What he saw when he arrived was nothing like the brochure.

The place they took him to was deliberately eerie. Objects that looked like remnants of human life were arranged around the room — not described in detail, but enough to make him step back. When he asked for water, they handed him a red drink. He couldn’t tell if it was some sort of colored beverage or something far darker. Around him, people shuffled in chains, eyes glazed, moving like people who had been broken by whatever powers ruled that place. He says he knew, in that instant, he didn’t belong there.

One person among the chained was recognized by those with him — a face people used to see on TV, a well-known actress who no longer appears in public. That frightened him more than anything. If she could end up like that, what chance did he have of coming out unchanged? He pictured himself someday walking that same slow path, and he ran.

Back in South Africa, he called his girlfriend in a panic and poured everything out. She then told her friends — and I am one of those friends who listened, late into the night. We tried to keep him calm, to tell him to come home, to warn him to cut ties with the people who took him there. But he was not done with the story.

He suspects that it wasn’t just about power for him — he believes one big musician, someone with influence in those circles, wanted him as part of something far more sinister. He thinks he was nearly marked for a sacrifice. That thought has filled him with a new kind of anger. He says he’s coming back to Nigeria to fight — to confront whoever tried to use him.

Since he returned — or at least since the first wave of calls and messages — his behavior changed. He posts endlessly now: videos, long monologues, shaky confessionals. At times he seems lucid and clear; other times, his words tumble out like electrical sparks, and we wonder whether what he saw has warped him. His girlfriend is terrified. She calls me at odd hours, telling me how his videos make her feel like she’s losing the person she loves.

There are questions with no answers. Was it ritual theater designed to scare? Was blood involved, or was that just a disturbing prop? Were the chained people volunteers, victims, or actors meant to convince him to sign his life away? Who exactly stands behind these promises of endless wealth — and how many people have been quietly ruined in pursuit of it?

I don't have the answers. What I have is a scared man who ran for his life, a girlfriend far away trying to hold him together, and a circle of friends trying to pick up the pieces. I also have a warning: when someone offers you power that sounds like a shortcut, check the cost. If something feels wrong, run — and trust the people who love you enough to tell you it’s dangerous.

If you recognize this story in someone you know: listen. Believe them. Ask them to pause before they go back. And if they say they’ve seen things they can’t unsee, don’t shrug it off as drama. Sometimes the scariest bargains aren’t the ones that promise money — they’re the ones that promise you can keep what’s left of your soul.

— an anonymous friend