Help! A Friend’s Life Is Threatened!!!

My friend recently returned from Bangui, CAR, last week, to attend his mother’s funeral (she was struck by lightning), only to be told he had to make a life pact with a crocodile, just like his mother did, before he could bury his mother. According to him, when his mother was a child, a bottle of blood was drawn from her left arm, and left limb of a captured crocodile, mixed together with some ritual herbs, and ritual stones, then fed to his mother and the crocodile. The crocodile was released back into the wild. It is a longevity ritual, according to him. The human will live as long as the crocodile. He said in his village---he is Igbo---they believe that crocodiles in the wild live to be around 100 years. If anything happens to the crocodile, the human feels it. The human can never die unless the crocodile dies. His mother was 63, and would have been 64 this year. They think the crocodile was also struck by lightning and that’s why his mother was struck by lightning too.He does not want to do this ritual, because he does not believe in it. Why would anyone put their life in the hands of an animal which a hunter can kill any time?The elders say his mother cannot be buried unless he does the ritual, to continue the omenala in his family. His father is late.Is anyone familiar with this ritual? What can he do to get out of it? He wants to fly out but does not want to leave his mum unburied. Help!!!