We, from this part of the world, are highly superstitious. We tend to believe too many things, whether they're backed by facts or not, or whether there's been witnesses to account that such thing ever happened. Like, some of us grew up in environments where if you woke up and found dog shit at the foot of your door, or somewhere in your compound, then that day, your parents(mother mostly) would begin to scream and pray, sending the shit and the badluck to whoever supposedly sent it. I mean, you live in an area where there are dogs, so what makes you think it wasn't anyone of them that had pooped there? It just had to be a witch.
And if you're unlucky, then no food that day cause yalll have to engage in compulsory fast to revert the evil. Hahaha.
And with that and many other superstitions, younger ones had to believe and pass it down. Nollywood did not even help, too.
You would think that with digitalization, a lot of these things would reduce drastically, but no, they just had to bring it over.
When my mum started to use an android phone newly, she was always sending me texts. I knew she did not draft herself. Bizarre texts on whatsapp that ended with "share to 10 people on your contact list if you ..." She'd go on to message me and ask if I had shared it. It was always embarrassing, but I could always lie that I had to get free from her disturbances.
One of the digital superstition, however, that I hate is the one that's so common on Facebbok. The one with a picture of a dramatized Jesus with one hand lifted that and a caption that says, "Take a second and type I love you Jesus if you don'twant evil to befall you in blah blah days"
That is so annoying. Like, what rubbish?
This is even better. Have you ever come across the "Type Amen if you want your mother to live long." The height of it! Tell me what in the name of emotional blackmail that is. You can't just scroll past cause you've read it, and you feel both guilty and scared by it. Then you see that there are thousands of reactions and comments on that post. I don't blame people anyway. Even if you don't want to, the thought of losing your mother cause you couldn't spare a moment to type one word is haunting.
I did it sometimes. I fell for it, not because I wanted to, but because I haven't got free from the superstitions as every other Nigerian. Nowadays, i just scroll past really quick or I mutter some words that are positive. Lol. It's not easy, but I'm learning to overlook and call it what it is, which is a bait to increase and grow a page in the best way that anyone could get my naija people to.