Alfa Gani

Some Muslims like to add other religions’ rituals into their faith practices. Many do it to keep their struggling mosques open, as was likely the case for Nigerian Islamic cleric Alfa Gani. Neighbors noticed a foul stench coming from his house, even worse than normal for a Muslim household. Inquisitive, they asked him what was wrong. He tried to deflect their probing, but they soon saw the mutilated placenta the cleric had taken from the naming ceremony of a newborn girl he had performed the previous day.

When police arrived, they found evidence that Gani had been performing numerous other rituals with other human organs, much akin to fellow Nigerian imam Gazali Akewadola. It is unknown whether or not he killed and/or dissected people himself. The mob of neighbors destroyed Gani’s property as police took him into custody. Though the ritual he was performing had nothing to do with Islam, the burial of the placenta is seen as sunnah by many Islamic scholars. The cleric’s exhumation of the placenta went against this teaching, however, many Muslims believe that it is acceptable to commit a small sin to avoid a greater evil, e.g. exhuming the placenta and using it for a ritual for profit so he could keep his mosque open.