A young woman from Lokoja, Kogi State, has been caught on video after she was allegedly found trying to put a substance she called a love charm into her ex-boyfriend’s food.
In the video, the woman admitted that she and a friend had visited a traditional spiritual practitioner in Adankolo to get what she called “jazz” — a local term for a love charm believed to influence how another person feels.
She insisted her goal was not to hurt or kill her ex-boyfriend. She said she only wanted him to stay emotionally attached to her and remain under her influence.
What “Juju” Means in Cases Like This
“Juju,” sometimes called “jazz” in Nigerian slang, refers to a charm, ritual, or substance that some people believe can spiritually control another person’s feelings, decisions, or health. Belief in juju is common across many parts of Nigeria, and it shows up in disputes ranging from failed relationships to business disagreements and even court cases about marriage.
Not the First Time: Similar Cases in Nigeria
Accusations and confessions involving juju in relationships are not new. In one Lagos case, a pastor told a customary court that his marriage collapsed after his wife accused him of using charms to marry her, a claim he denied. The court eventually dissolved the marriage after she refused to appear before it.
In another widely shared case, a Nigerian woman was mocked online after being accused of using juju to keep her foreign partner in the relationship. She later showed off her engagement ring in response to the accusations.
These cases show a pattern: when a Nigerian relationship becomes unusually intense, one-sided, or hard to explain, juju is often the first explanation people reach for, whether the accusation is true or not.
Why People Turn to Charms Instead of Communication (Causes and Effects)
There are a few reasons this keeps happening.
First, many people who feel a relationship slipping away do not trust ordinary communication to fix it. Instead of talking things through or accepting a breakup, some turn to spiritual practitioners who promise a quicker, more certain result.
Second, love charms are marketed as low-risk and low-effort. A person does not need the other partner’s cooperation, only access to something the partner will eat, drink, or wear. This makes the practice appealing to people who feel powerless in a relationship.
Third, this incident touches on a bigger national concern: consent and safety around food and personal items. Whether or not a charm has any real spiritual power, secretly adding an unknown substance to someone’s food without their knowledge is a serious breach of trust and, depending on the substance, a potential health risk. For Nigeria as a country, cases like this add to public unease about food safety in personal and informal settings, on top of existing worries about unsafe or adulterated food sold commercially.
Nigerian law already accounts for this kind of risk. Under the Criminal Code Act, maliciously administering a substance with intent to cause harm is a criminal offence, and separately, placing an injurious substance where it could affect another person is also punishable. (jurist.ng/criminal_code_act/part-5) Whether “spiritual” intent changes how such a case is treated in practice often depends on whether any physical harm can be proven, which can make prosecution difficult even when someone openly admits what they did.
Possible Solutions
Public education on food and personal safety in relationships. Many Nigerians do not think of secretly altering a partner’s food as a safety issue because the intent is framed as “spiritual” rather than harmful. Awareness campaigns could reframe this as the safety risk it is, regardless of intent.
Access to relationship counselling. Affordable counselling options, including community or faith-based mediation, could give people an alternative outlet when a relationship ends badly, instead of turning to charms or confrontation.
Clearer reporting pathways. Victims who discover this kind of act often do not know whether or how to report it, since it can straddle the line between a criminal matter and a private dispute. Clearer guidance could help both victims and law enforcement respond consistently.
The Bigger Picture
What strikes me most about this story is how ordinary the woman’s explanation sounded to her, even as she described trying to secretly alter what another person eats. That gap between how normal the act felt to her and how serious it actually is says a lot about how deeply some people still believe a relationship can be won through spiritual means rather than honesty or consent. No charm, real or imagined, replaces the right to walk away from a relationship freely. Until that belief is challenged directly, rather than treated as harmless tradition, cases like this will keep resurfacing.
Published by Ejoh Caleb
