Panic is spreading across some of Nigeria’s major cities over the “666” mark allegedly received by two people at the popular Computer Village in Ikeja, Lagos.

A text message currently making the rounds says: “Please don’t pick calls from 08016660666. Two people at Computer Village Ikeja received “666” mark on their forehead after picking the calls today. Please send to others.”

As is the norm with such messages, the text identity of those who allegedly received the mark and the exact location where the incident purportedly happened were not disclosed.

On receiving the text message from a staunch Pentecostal who works as a company executive in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, News Express Publisher promptly sent a text to the number, 08016660666 but it repeatedly failed to deliver. News Express then repeatedly called the number but a pre-recorded female voice said: “The number you are trying to call does not exist. Please check the number and try again.

Widely known as “The Mark (or Number) of the Beast, 666 is found in chapter 13 verses 15–18 in the Bible Book of Revelation. It reads thus in the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures: “And there was granted it to give breath to the image of the wild beast, so that the image of the wild beast should both speak and cause to be killed all those who would not in any way worship the image of the wild beast. And it puts under compulsion all persons, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free and the slaves, that they should give these a mark in their right hand or upon their forehead, and that nobody might be able to buy or sell except a person having the mark, the name of the wild beast or the number of its name. Here is where wisdom comes in: Let the one that has intelligence calculate the number of the wild beast, for it is a man’s number; and its number is six hundred and sixty-six.”

While many Christian groups teach that the number 666 is literal and is identified with the Antichrist, a few, notably Jehovah’s Witnesses, insist that it is symbolic. The Watchtower magazine of February 15, 2009, for instance, said that the wild beast of Revelation symbolises human governments while the sea out of which it ascends is the turbulent masses of mankind the number 666 denotes heightened imperfection. “Accepting ‘the mark of the wild beast in our hand or upon our forehead’ would amount to permitting the wild beast to control our actions or affect our thinking,” the magazine stated.

*Illustration courtesy The Daily Banter