Even though everyone is appalled by the bestialities of Boko Haram terrorists, some Nigerians are making a huge amount of money selling DVDs of purported butchery by the jihadists.
A seller and a buyer in one of the shops
The videos may as well be showing atrocities committed by other fundamentalists in other parts of Africa, particularly in the Central African Republic, where insurgents go as far as eating their victims.
Youths hawk the purported Boko Haram videos at bus stops, street corners and other available space in the Lagos metropolis. They mount television sets and DVD decoders to screen chilling episodes of human beings slaughtered like chicken.
The horrific scenes evoke resentment of Boko Haram’s inhumanity to fellow man and get instant patronage. The videos are pirated footages from television newscasts and the internet.
Talking to the sellers is like trying to rouse the mute to speak. They have no time to listen to any question, they are only interested in “I want to buy this one or that one.”
A hawker in Oshodi, Lagos has sold to a deluge of customers in the past five months. He sells an average of five copies of these awful DVDs per minute at the rate of N100 per copy. At times, he makes more than N10,000 a day.
TheNiche observed this brisk business at Oshodi park where teenage boys and girls hawk the DVDs in trays. Others hold them to display them to curious passersby who, on seeing the labels or television screening, buy them.
Other locations of the sale include the Mile 2 and Orile axis of the city. Night time sale is peak period.
Murder of girls
The hottest selling label shows supposed Boko Haram terrorists slaughtering their human captives like chicken. In one DVD, captured girls kneel down, with a man standing behind each. At the signal of their leader, the men slit knives down the throats of the girls. About 20 girls are “killed” this way.
The girls are as helpless as a goat tied hind and neck. No resistance. The locale is an open field surrounded by a few huts and a mammoth crowd of Muslim fundamentalists who cheer the slaughter.
This video convinces the crowd of buyers who hear only by name that Boko Haram is a disguised modern day evil let loose on Nigeria.
Soka ritual den
The second top selling video is that of the Soka ritual den in Ibadan recently discovered by the police. It shows confessions of arrested ritual suspects, the uncompleted building and the testimony of the owner of the building.
Kidnapped Chibok girls
The DVD of Chibok girls kidnapped by Boko Haram is the third best seller. It shows some of the girls, their Boko Haram guards and other horrific footages like the unsanitary conditions they are kept.
Nyanya bomb blasts
Next in the horror rating is the video of the bomb blasts at Nyanya motor park in Abuja. “This one has not been selling much since the Chibok girls’ abduction. Before, it was the hottest selling,” said one of the sellers who identified himself as Kene, aged about 15.
Lynching in Lagos, carnage in the North East
The attacks on Borno, Yobe and Jos are also raking in money for DVD sellers.
Also on the market is the video of a mother and her two daughters lynched by a mob in Okoto, Lagos for stealing pepper.
The incident sparked outrage in Lagos, provoking the government to issue a warning against jungle justice, and women’s rights activists into rallies and clamour for the prosecution of the perpetrators.
American drones
However, perhaps due to the secrecy involved in military operations, video footages of the arrival of United States and British military personnel aiding the rescue of the Chibok girls are not many. The ones on sale are those of the landing of American drones and soldiers alighting from them.
Akunyili’s death boosts photo journals
The terror Nigeria is contending with has also boosted business for amateur photo journalists. Event photo tabloids are competing with orthodox newspapers and magazines in story deadlines.
The death of former Information Minister, Dora Akunyili, was published in newspapers and photo journals simultaneously.
“These photo newspapers sell more than regular newspapers when events like this happen,” a vendor in Mushin, Lagos said.