First, I will like to plug my own book “A Jar of Clay, Part 1: Made in Nigeria”. It is available on Amazon and you can use one of these links:
In the previous post (read here) I provided an overview of “Won Ro Pe Were Ni”, a book written by Adebayo Faleti in 1965. In this post, I provide my own comments on the book. The reason I am reviewing “Won Ro Pe Were Ni” in the blog about my own book is because, like “Won Ro Pe Were Ni”, I also explored morality. I like “Won Ro Pe Were Ni” because Faleti did not sit on the fence. Instead, he took a view on morality.
The main theme in the book was the social and cultural practice of “spraying money” and its impact on the society. You may be wondering what “spraying money” is all about. While I don’t really know when or where it started, it is very important to note that Faleti wrote about this practice in 1965. On the basis of that, I believe it started in South Western Nigeria, among the Yorubas of Nigeria.
“Spraying Money” is the practice of throwing money at either a celebrant or an entertainer. The practice is still alive and well across the whole of Nigeria. There are a number of variation of these practices now. Traditionally, the money is pressed to the forehead of the entertainer or celebrant. These days there are several variations. If you want to see graphic examples, try one of these two links: if you have a lot of time or if you are pressed for time. It look like some feel that the practice of pressing money to somebody’s forehead either too tedious or too slow, and have now invented a spraying machine.
It is very obvious that in order to be able to spray money, you have to have a great deal of it. In “Won Ro Pe Were Ni”, Baba Rama, who loved to spray money eventually ran out of money. In order to restore his supply of money, he approached a cult who promised him inexhaustible wealth if he could find a human sacrifice. Baba Rama and his wife kidnapped the daughter of their closet family friend, but fortunately for the poor girl, she escaped. Fifty three years ago, Faleti was pointing out the implications of encouraging a culture of wasteful spending.
Another theme in “Won Ro Pe Were ni” was the scepticism of the residents of Ibadan about the sources of the wealth of the super rich. One character in the book, Olooko Oba (King’s namesake) claimed that nobody rich in Ibadan at that time did it through honest means. He argued that those that did not become rich through ritual sacrifice, did so either through smuggling, robbery or fraud. He argued that this was why people were willing to spend their resources in such a wasteful way. As far back as 1965, one of the problems we have in Nigeria today, the wasteful use of wealth, was already apparent.
The other hot topic in “Won Ro Pe Were Ni” was ritual murders. If you roll forward the clock to 2018 from 1965, ritual murders still creep up in Nigeria news media. You just need to look at social media such as Whatsapp and Facebook and explore some of the contents circulated. You will read about ritual murders, some of them often allegedly committed by close relatives of the murdered. Of course, it is difficult to establish the veracity of such stories even when they are accompanied by gory images. Yes, those images may be nothing beyond urban myths and legends, but they show that people still believe it is possible to be wealthy through ritual sacrifices of other human beings. As long as people believe these things are possible, some desperate souls would eventually act these things out.
I was really happy that Adebayo Faleti’ took a moral stance in “Won Ro Pe Were Ni”. The sentences on the cultists were very severe. Neither did the entertainers go scot-free. The judge confiscated the drums of the entertainers, highlighting the role they played in promoting the wasteful use of wealth.
On the practice of “spraying money”, I really hope that Nigerians would pause and reflect on this practice, asking ourselves whether this practice is beneficial to society or not.
oyebode.com 
1 thought on “Won Ro Pe Were Ni (They Thought She was Mad) By Adebayo Faleti: Review”