Jideofor Adibe
\nI was quite pleased that the controversial International Conference on Witchcraft at the
\nUniversity of Nigeria, my alma mater, held as scheduled, despite opposition from right-wing
\nChristian bodies and other busy-bodies. The conference, organised by the Prof. B.I.C Ijomah
\nCentre for Policy Studies and Research, UNN, was strongly resisted, with pressure mounted on
\nthe University authorities to cancel the conference. It is to the credit of the organisers that they
\nstood their ground though they had to change the theme of the conference from the initially
\nproposed \u201cWitchcraft, meanings, factors and practices,\u201d to \u201cDimensions of human behaviours.\u201d
\nI believe the academia should be a citadel for interrogating all \u2018interrogatables\u2019. For the
\nwitchcraft conference, whether it was for academic purposes or for those who claim to be
\npractitioners, the important thing is the element of critical inquiry embedded in the decision by a
\nresearch unit of a University to organise such a conference.
\nBut it is not only the pervasive fear of witchcraft that is our problem. The fear of anything
\nremotely paranormal or occult is palpable. For instance during the Dana Air crash that led to the
\nloss of over 150 souls, some residents of Iju-Ishaga, a suburb of Lagos where the Dana airline
\ncrashed into buildings on June 3 2012, reacted negatively to proposals for the mass burial of
\nunidentified victims in the area on fears that the ghosts of the departed would come to torment
\nthem. One Idayatu Ali, a 24-year-old unemployed resident of the area was in fact quoted at that
\ntime as saying: \u201cThis is no superstition; I have witnessed where a young man died in an accident
\nand his ghost continued to cry at the scene for days until a sacrifice was performed.\u201d Ms Ali was
\nfurther reported as saying that if the authorities went ahead with their plan for a mass burial of
\nthe unidentified victims in the area, many residents would be forced to relocate to another area.
\nThere is a strong suspicion that one of the grounds of opposition to the idea of mass burial is the
\ntraditional belief that if the dead are not properly buried with all the rituals and rites, their spirits
\nmay be wandering and seeking vengeance on the living.
\nIn 2009, the police in Kwara State brought opprobrium to the country by \u2018detaining\u2019 a black and
\nwhite goat, which some vigilantes seized and accused of being an armed robber who used black
\nmagic to transform himself into an animal after trying to steal a Mazada 323 car. Years ago,
\nsome people in different parts of the country were lynched because they were accused of
\nmystically stealing some men\u2019s manhood just by shaking hands with them. Beliefs like these are
\ncommon across the country, justifying the witchcraft conference \u2013 whether academic or not: if
\nthose who claim they practice witchcraft or juju say they want to, that will be fine with me,
\nprovided we will have magicians and others who can understand the principles of their
\nassumptions to interrogate them. This is what the spirit of critical inquiry is all about. I believe it s time we carried honest conversations about our belief systems and how they impact on the
\ntype of solutions we seek for the problems that confront us as a nation.
\nIt must be clarified from the onset that belief in the occult and the paranormal is not peculiar to
\nAfrica. However while the belief in the existence of witches, occult and other paranormal
\nphenomena exists in all cultures, there is something untoward about the way this belief is
\nexpressed in Africa, which has led some to conclude that our belief systems are at least part of
\nthe reasons why the rest of the world have left us behind in political and economic development.
\nPerhaps the African cosmology, which is intensely spiritual, predisposes us to a pattern of belief
\nthat verges on the superstitious. Traditionally Africans believe that up above is the abode of
\nGod, the Creator and Supreme deity, and that below the earth is the world of the ancestors – or
\nthe living-dead – who exercise some influence over the affairs of the living. They also believe
\nthat spirits \u2013 both good and malevolent – inhabit the earth with humans and that each person is
\nassigned a personal \u2018chi\u2019 (guardian angel), not only to help him\/her ward off the perceived evil
\ndesigns of the malevolent spirits but also to intercede on his\/her behalf in the ancestral world and
\nthe world of the Supreme God. Perhaps this intensely spiritual nature of our cosmology is one of
\nthe reasons why many Nigerians find supernatural explanation for virtually every occurrence,
\ncreating in the process avenues for brisk businesses for \u2018smart\u2019 pastors, Imams and babalawos. How do the African belief in the supernatural and the occult differ from the way such beliefs are
\nexpressed in say the Western culture? Let me illustrate this with just one example:
\nOne of the celebrities thrown up by the 2010 World Cup in South Africa was the German
\nOctopus Paul. The then two-year-old psychic cephalopod, now late, achieved global fame for
\ncorrectly predicting all of Germany\u2019s World Cup matches, including their two defeats by Spain
\nand Serbia. It also successfully tipped Spain to win the World Cup \u2013 predictions that reportedly
\nled to the mollusc receiving death threats from Dutch fans as it did from German supporters in
\nthe two occasions it successfully predicted German defeats.
\nOne significant thing about Octopus Paul\u2019s predictions was that his method was transparent: it
\ngot the choice of picking food from two different transparent containers lowered into his tank
\nand the container he opened first was regarded as his pick. Were Octopus Paul owned by a
\nNigerian (or perhaps any other African), and the animal correctly predicted the outcome of one
\nor two matches during the World Cup, it is most likely that the owner would paint his face and
\neye lashes with the weirdest chalk around, build a mysterious grove for the creature (and if
\npossible let decomposing corpses litter the pathway to the shrine) and spend the better part of an
\nhour chanting incantations whenever any customer showed up. There would of course be high
\npriests and worshippers of the creature. Additionally, unlike Octopus Paul whose psychic power
\nwas apparently limited to predicting football matches, the African owner would definitely claim
\nthe octopus would predict any event, heal any disease and infirmity and even tell you the person
\n\u2018blocking\u2019 your success in life. While Octopus Paul announced his retirement from predictions
\njust a day after the World Cup, for a Nigerian owner, the proper deification of the creature and the associated lucre would start after the World Cup. Again while there was an official
\nannouncement about the death of the mollusc in its German aquarium on October 25 2010, a
\nNigerian owner would contrive immortality for the creature. While for most Westerners Octopus
\nPaul was essentially part of the entertainment for the World Cup \u2013 the way the Vuvuzela was –
\nwere the octopus owned by a Nigerian, the little manifestation of psychic ability would have
\nbeen defined as the \u2018main reality\u2019 of life, while our world of reason and critical inquiry would be
\npresented as at best \u2018virtual reality\u2019. Again while the psychic successes of Octopus Paul never led
\nto a generalised belief in the West about the reliability of its predictions, were the creature owned
\nby a Nigerian, the mere fact that the octopus achieved 100 per cent success rate at the World Cup
\nwill mean that whatever he says (or is contrived to have said) in the future, would be taken as
\ngospel truth \u2013 not mere prediction with a reasonable chance of error. Just imagine the number of
\ndiviners, imams and pastors who have created eternal enmity in families and communities by
\nfingering people who are probably innocent, as the cause of other people\u2019s misfortunes.
\nSo do witches exist? Anything that has a name probably exists in one form or another.
\nAdditionally whatever a person intensely believes in exists for that person. While I am not totally
\ndiscountenancing the existence of esoteric phenomena, I feel there is something that does not
\nseem right the way occult and esoteric tales are bandied around in the country \u2013 often without the
\nopportunity to subject the numerous claims to public scrutiny. One of the consequences is that
\ntales of paranormal and occult practices \u2013 of people who could make your manhood disappear
\nsimply by shaking your hands, of women who could use \u2018love potion\u2019 to ensnare you into
\nmarrying them or to do their wishes, of people turning into yam tubers simply from wearing
\nOkada helmets \u2013 are a daily staple, instilling fears, even paranoia, in the hearts of many.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jideofor Adibe I was quite pleased that the controversial International Conference on Witchcraft at the University of Nigeria, my alma mater, held as scheduled, despite opposition from right-wing Christian bodies…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":70638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n