This article delves into two seemingly disparate topics: the prevalence of scams originating from Nigeria, particularly those targeting writers, and the rich spiritual traditions of the Ifa religion. By exploring these contrasting subjects, we aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of both the challenges and the cultural depths present within Nigeria.
The Rise of Nigerian Scams Targeting Writers
In recent times, there has been a surge in scams targeting writers, many of which originate from Nigeria. These scams often involve impersonations, fake marketing offers, and bogus review groups. It’s always seemed most plausible to me that a relatively small number of people are running these scams. The Nigerian scams are different: they target anyone with a published book.
I began getting sporadic reports of them in June; now I’m hearing about them multiple times a day. The good news-I think, anyway-is that the scammers may be sabotaging themselves by mounting such an intense spam campaign. This ensures that any given writer will receive multiple solicitations-sometimes multiple times a day-which tends to spark suspicion and leads to discussion on social media…spreading the word, but not in a way that benefits the scammers.
Here’s to scam awareness.
There’s been some discussion of the scam on Reddit. One poster mentions fake testimonials from real authors; I heard from author T. UPDATE 9/24/25: They’ve found me! Three comments left on this post today: two purporting that a “great job!” was done on their books by…someone (one of the freelancers whos profiles I screenshotted above, perhaps?) and a third sadly petitioning me to remove the freelancers’ profiles (sorry, no). I can see commenters’ IP addresses, and the two “great job!” ones, while bearing different names, come from the same address.
Read also: Mysteries of Nabta Playa
One of the disadvantages of this kind of expose is that it lets scammers know someone is on to them, which encourages them to shift tactics. Warning about scams like trying to bail a boat with a gigantic hole in the bottom.
Common Scam Tactics
These scams often employ various tactics to deceive writers:
- Book Club Impersonations: Scammers impersonate book clubs, inviting authors to speak at events for a fee. In some cases, as the example below, the book club appears to be fictional, with no trace of it to be found online. The catch, as you’ll doubtless have guessed, is that the author has to pay a fee for their appearance, variously described as a “spot fee” or a “spotlight fee” or a “spot-securing fee” or a “participation fee”. (Needless to say, real book clubs don’t charge fees to their guests). Amounts reported to me range from $55 to $350.
- Fake Private Review Groups: Writers are offered the chance to have their books reviewed by a private community, but they must pay for the reviews. Of course it’s not free: reviewers get a “tip” of anywhere from $20 to $30. That may not sound like a lot, but you have to commit to a minimum buy of between 30 and 50 reviewers. It’s typical of the type, including the extensive (and pretty accurate) personalization, over-the-top flattery, lashings of emojis, and faux-edgy style.
- Marketing and PR Offers: Scammers pose as marketing consultants, offering services like Amazon ad campaigns and social media marketing.
Payment options also vary, with some scammers encouraging payment via the friends and family option on Paypal (scammers like this option because the payments can’t be reversed). Others offer to send invoices.
UPDATE 10/28/25: Increasingly, the scammers are sending bank transfer information rather than Upwork contracts. And the latest report I’ve received of this connects two prongs of the scam (there are four: impersonations of well-known authors, general marketing/PR offers, and the two identified in this post, book club impersonations and fake private review groups). The scammers favor Wells Fargo, probably because of its robust international business service offerings. Below are payment instructions received by two different writers.
On the left, instructions from “marketing consultant Amanda Reynolds”, from July (Amanda offered a suite of marketing services such as Amazon ad campaigns and social media marketing). On the right, instructions from “Dawn”, impersonating Brooklyn Smutty Book Club with a “feature program” offer, from today.
Read also: The Rise of Nigerian Basketball
A characteristic of the Philippine and Pakistani scams I’ve written so much about on this blog is that they focus almost exclusively on writers who’ve self-published or who are seeking self-publication. As a result, I’ve suddenly started to receive the kinds of scam solicitations that have been driving self-pubbed writers nuts for years.
The over-the-top flattery can also backfire, not just because it’s so absurdly overblown but because, thanks to the way chatbots consume and spit out details, the solicitations soon start to seem very repetitive. I suspect this is why, despite the enormous number of reports I’ve gotten of these scams, almost all come from writers who have already pegged them as scams (see, for example, the two Reddit posts linked in above). I’ve heard from only a handful of authors who actually went as far as paying…and only at the very beginning of the wave.
Staying Vigilant
It is crucial for writers to remain vigilant and skeptical of unsolicited offers. Always verify the legitimacy of book clubs, review groups, and marketing consultants before engaging with them or making any payments.
Deeper into Ifa: Unveiling Ancient Wisdom
Ifa is a profound spiritual and religious tradition originating from the Yoruba people of Nigeria. It encompasses a complex system of divination, ethics, and cosmology. Central to Ifa are concepts such as destiny, transformation, and the interconnectedness of all things.
Religion traditionally takes one of two approaches in its attempt to describe the unity of Being. The dogmatic approach is to describe Deity based on established religious doctrine. Accessing courage using this approach is based on accepting or believing specific articles of faith. Ifa uses the mystical path to access courage.
Read also: Requirements for Nigeria Police Clearance
In Ifa, the ascetic discipline involves honoring personal taboos, the study of geomancy (patterns of dafa), meditation, incantation, and initiation. Using these techniques, understanding Being becomes a process of expanding consciousness by overcoming fear through Ifayelele. The content of mystical experience is known in the West as revelation. In Ifa, revelation is described as communication with Orunmila.
The philosophical implication of Ifa mystical discipline is that Being, or Olorun, is grounded in a creative process that is based on universal principles that can be grasped by human consciousness. These principles are viewed as levels of mystery into the nature of Olorun that can be progressively revealed to anyone interested in making the effort. But because consciousness is restricted by the limitations of time and space, Olorun remains beyond the scope of verbal description.
Key Concepts in Ifa
- Ifayelele: The word Ifayelele from the elision Ifa yeye ile ile means the wisdom of the eternal house of the mothers. I believe it is a reference to the state of grace that occurs in the mother’s womb prior to birth. To know Ifayelele in the face of fear is to return to the moment of unity at the beginning of time. True courage can be found in no other place.
- Ori and Destiny: This means events that may appear as tragedy and misfortune may have a deeper meaning beyond human understanding. This element of faith is based on the Ifa belief that every human head (ori) has made an agreement with Olorun at the beginning of each incarnation to receive a specific destiny as part of the overall unfolding of evolution.
- Reincarnation: Ifa understands reincarnation to be the rebirth of consciousness in different physical bodies. The rebirth of the emi (soul) is believed to occur within recent family lineage. It is this aspect of Ifa belief that is the basis for ancestor reverence and respect for children.
The Ifa rituals performed for cleaning away negative influences (etutu), rites of passage (igbodu), and offerings of appeasement (ebo), are all intended to create attunement with what can be known about an individual’s specific destiny. They are not intended to fulfill arbitrary desires, or to crate meaningless power and abundance. It is the task of Ifa to guide individuals along the path that leads to those portals of vision that reveal the primal agreement with Olorun.
Those who develop good character (iwa-pele) become the elders of the community, sharing their insights with the younger members of the extended family who look to them for guidance. What this means in practice is that the deepest meaning of Ifa folklore; myth and symbolism cannot be fully understood by the intellect alone. Religious meaning must be both understood and experienced to be fully grasped.
In Yoruba language wisdom is known as ori ire. The phrase has various translations, but in this context it would mean; head of goodness, or transformed head. Ori ire is the basis for the respect given to the elders of the Yoruba community who have direct experience of remembering aspects of their original agreement with Olorun.
The Power of Oro and Ase
In Ifa the sound of Creation is called Oro, which means word. It is not the word of normal speech or conversation. Oro is the word of power, the word of manifestation, and the effect of invocation. This understanding of word as power is the foundation of the Ifa process of spiritual transformation. The Ifa belief is that the power of the primal Oro is preserved in the physical universe at all levels of existence.
According to Ifa, the moment of Creation (Oro) generated a single force known as ase. This force is manifest in polar form as expansion and contraction. The force of expansion creates light, and the force of contraction creates matter.
Ifa myth indicates that the ase used to communicate between the ori of humans and the ori of Orisa (Forces in Nature) comes from Olodumare, through Ela, to Esu. Because he is the most immediate and the most accessible ling to ase, Esu has t...
The Roles of Olodumare, Ela, and Esu
The primal Spirit that sustains form as an element of Creation is Olodumare. This is a difficult word to translate directly into English. Some Yoruba dictionaries define Olodumare as the self-existent God. In metaphysical terms, this means Olodumare is the aspect of Olorun that has physical existence. In this context Olodumare is sometimes called Oba Orun, meaning Ruler of Heaven.
It appears to me the word Olodumare might be a contraction of Olodu meaning Owner of Odu; and Osumare, meaning Rainbow. Odu is the word used to describe Ifa scripture, but it also represents the Womb of Creation. The translation from this interpretation would be the light of the Rainbow comes from the Primal Womb. I can find no written confirmation for this translation.
Esu is known as the rascal, and virtually all traditional forms of Nature Worship recognize some form of the Trickster Spirit. In European systems of Earth Reverence, the Trickster is often represented as the Divine Fool, or the Court Jester. What is unique in Ifa is the identification of the force that controls Esu. This Force is called Ela. The word has no literal translation, but is sometimes described as the Spirit of Purity. I suspect it is an elision of e ala meaning I am light.
The Ifa description of the interaction between Ela and Esu is an expression of the effect of Divine Will on the parameters of chaos. In some regions of Yoruba land, Ela is associated with Eleda. The word Eleda is used to describe the energy center in the human head located just above the bridge of the nose.
Ela is considered the first incarnation of the prophet Orunmila. It is the first incarnation in Spirit form that preceded the emergence of human life. Ela is the power that gives expression to the forms that exist in the womb of Olodumare. The ase (power) of Ela is constantly giving support to the forms that emanate from Olodumare.
In objective terms, the existence of Ela means chaos in the universe can only move a certain distance from the parameters of evolution before it runs up against the primal genetic imprint of Nature. As a force in Nature, Ela is both the coded blueprint for the unfolding of evolution and the primal principle that defines the nature of expansion in the universe.
Opon Ifa - a traditional Yoruba divination tray
The Eternal Sacred Order of Cherubim and Seraphim
The Eternal Sacred Order of Cherubim and Seraphim, also known as the ESOCS, is a church denomination in Nigeria that was founded by Moses Orimolade Tunolase in 1925. Orimolade received considerable media attention when he allegedly healed a girl, Christina Abiodun Akinsowon, from a long-term trance in which she could neither speak nor hear.
The Cherubim and Seraphim group claim to have dreams and visions that facilitate the connection of God and humanity. They believe that in 1925, Jesus Christ directed them to name their group "Seraphim", after the order of angels (Isaiah 6). Several years after the creation of the Cherubim and Seraphim, different denominations following in its traditions broke off and formed new churches.
The founder, Moses Orimolade Tunolase, was born in 1879, into the quarters of the royal family of Omoba Ode Sodi of Okorun quarters, in Ikare, Nigeria. His mother, Madam Odijoro, said that when she was pregnant, she went to the farm to cut some firewood on a particular day. When she was ready to leave, she realized she could not lift the firewood she had cut. Suddenly, she heard a voice telling her the easiest way to lift all of the firewood. She looked around but could not find anyone.
The new child stood up right after his birth and walked around the delivery place."[3] The midwife that helped with his delivery held him down forcefully to stop him from walking. Members of the Cherubim and Seraphim believe that the force of the midwife, in addition to some incantations made by his herbalist father to calm him down on the day he was born, led to Orimolade's "prolonged paralysis".
Not long after Orimolade and his mother left his father's house, Orimolade sent a message to his father, telling him to go to a nearby hill (now known by the Cherubim and Seraphim in Ikare as calvary) to ask for forgiveness for his sins. People claim that the message threw Orimolade's father into complete depression, which caused him to become ill.
Books claim that one night, Orimolade was in a church singing some songs of praises. Astonished by the voices, the minister, who thought they were the voices of the choir, went over to the church to ask them why they were using the church without his permission. However, upon his arrival, he found that it was just a boy, about 5 years old, singing as though he was a group of choristers.
After Orimolade left the church, he continued to spread the word around Nigeria, preaching in Benin, Delta, Kwara, Niger and finally Lagos, where he died in 1933. Orimolade claimed his calling was to go about preaching the gospel of the Lord and heal the sick. Records say that in reply to his prayer, an angel appeared to him in his dreams, presenting him with a rod, which they claimed signified a "rod of victory", an insignia which represented a "power of prayer and power of speaking", and a crown which stood for "all honour and Multi-respect of every individual to bow before him to receive blessing."
After Orimolade woke up, he knew his prayer had been answered. He began his campaign when he petitioned the police to release a group of Christians who had had a clash with some traditional worshippers. It was recorded that, "He preached with so much vehemence that the earth opened its mouth ... and they were all afraid and many of them ran away, but his brother, Egunjobi did many rituals according to ancient customs to put the earth back to its former closure ...
In 1916, Orimolde left his hometown of Ikare for Irun, which was about six miles away. On getting there, he found the people celebrating the festival of Osijora, the idol they worshipped. He pulled down the images of this idol, and "opened the seal of witchcraft, and acrobatic evil worshippers."[4] From Irun, he headed straight to Ogbagi, a nearby village, and did the same thing, after which he preached the gospel of God and showed the people what God expected from them in order to enter heaven.
He continued his journey of gospel, and repeated his actions in town after town throughout Nigeria. He went to places such as Akungba, where he prayed and healed people, to Oka, where he rebuked the people for worshipping masquerades, to Kiran, with a few people from Oka carrying him on their head. He continued on to Ibilo, Merri, Ipele, and Ifon, and from Ifon they carried him to Owo.
Orimolade also stopped by Benin, where they worshipped a golden statue by feeding it with human blood. The Cherubim and Seraphim Church base most of their worship methods and objects of worship on the New Testament of the Bible, particularly the Book of Revelation. The objects they use include candles, to represent light, backed with Revelation 3:1-3. The use of the candles also represent God as when God revealed Himself to mankind (the Israelites) on Mount Sinai as a fire, to Moses in the bush in a form of fire and multiple other instances when God revealed Himself and showed His power through fire.; rods, as a sign of authority, from Revelation 2:26-27; incense, which they believe drives away evil spirits and creates a holy and serene atmosphere for the Holy Spirit to take preeminence, from Malachi 1:11 and Revelations 5:8,8:4; and they ring bells not only as a sign of victory but also for musical purposes.
Again, before any service is commenced, the most senior elder rings the bell three times. This is known as "Call To Worship". As the name suggests, it is used to call people around the Church premises to join in prayers. They also believe that the bell calls on the Heavenly Creatures to assist them in their prayers. The Cherubim and Seraphim have special prayers for sick people, which are used as a form of faith healing. These prayers are led by the leaders of the church, while the sick person kneels in the middle of a circle, if they are able.
The Cherubim and Seraphim believe in the use of water and oil. They believe that water has a type of healing power, because of the strength of baptism and the spirit of God that dwells within it. They also believe in the use of consecrated oil, because it is backed by the bible in James 5:14-15.[4] Fasting is another tradition they have. They believe it is "an injunction of Christ for support of prayers." The Cherubim and Seraphim also believe that fasting increases their spiritual strength and speeds up their success in spiritual matters.[4]
The church also has a set of taboos. They have food taboos, which place a restraint on what they can and cannot eat. The Cherubim and Seraphim also have special ceremonies/anniversaries, such as Holy Michael's Anniversary, which takes place on September 29 of every year. This event is used to thank God for all the victories He grants them as Holy Michael fights the battles of the faithful.
The Cherubim and Seraphim have church services throughout the week. They have special services on Sunday. On Mondays, they meet for prayers for Visioneers, Dreamers and all spiritual workers for spiritual power. On Tuesdays, they have Bible Class at 6 pm. On Wednesdays, the women meet to pray from 9am to 3pm and later in the night, the men meet to pray from 12am. On Thursdays, they have what they call "Mid-week Full Service" at 6pm. At 6 pm on Fridays, they have "Protection Mark/Sealing Service.
Here is a table summarizing the special ceremonies/anniversaries of the Cherubim and Seraphim Church:
| Ceremony/Anniversary | Date | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Holy Michael's Anniversary | September 29 | Thanksgiving for victories granted by God through Holy Michael. |
| Holy Gabriel's Anniversary | Third Thursday in August | Celebration acknowledging the presence and work of Holy Gabriel. |
| Anniversary of Cherubim Band | Last Thursday in May | Special sermon with specific attire. |
| Anniversary of Seraphim Band | September 9 | Commemoration of the naming of the society in Lagos, Nigeria. |
| Repentant Meeting Day | First Friday in November | Day-long fasting and repentance. |
| Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem | First Sunday in July | Prayers for peace in Jerusalem and Christendom. |
IFA Divination: Explaining IKIN IFA And How It Is Used
Location of Nigeria
Popular articles:
tags: #Nigeria
