I had my University education in the Heart Beat of the Nation(What state) and I had several experiences to help me conclude that “Air force” is real. As a matter of fact, it cancelled every doubt I had about witches being a myth. Not just night-time flying buddies, but day-time ones. A typical Benin girl had no problem saying, “Me I no go wait till night to show you my true colour oh!” However, this is not the article to decide which tribe is the witchcraft warlord in Nigeria, one of these days; you will get a chance to exercise your bragging rights.
During my time as a Corp Member in Anambra, Nigeria, I heard the gist of a madman who is always at the market closest to my house. They said he is from a family of nine and all his siblings of three brothers and three sisters are mad too. I told the driver who was giving me the gist (you know, drivers know everything), that perhaps it was a medical condition; “some of these things are in the lineage and passed on”, I said as I struggled to make sense of the situation and disassociate it from my African belief in witchcraft, the driver argued, “Which kind inheritance be that? Na so the craze plenty for their papa body?” He quipped.
I was alarmed at how their sane parents would handle a household of mad people but as a correct African, I developed my ready-made shock absorber- instead of tracing the root of the problem logically or with common sense, we know the problem already; Village people!
Are village people really the cause of our problems? Just as we blame all our indiscretions on the devil, village people are blamed for the unexplained. I have got to ask though, are village people that powerful? Most of these people are just trying hard to make ends meet. If they were capable of such travesty and their “Juju” was so potent, shouldn’t they be using it for the farming season, the trekking season, stuff that actually makes their lives better?
Some of my friends insist that “Village people” are backward, and are irked when someone from the city drives home in that oppressive jeep during Christmas, (and we can all agree City people can be unnecessarily ostentatious ) but that in my opinion, sounds like a Nollywood script. As a matter of fact even Christians can agree that there is no part of scripture that says, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against ‘village’ principality and powers…” (So why blame innocent citizens- shouldn’t that be your conscience pricking you, asking- What have I done for my community, how have I helped my people? Are they happy with me?)
Most people have never say any good thing about their villages, on the contrary, very strange prayer points are common place, “Wherever they are gathered in my village… (Fetching water from the stream, buying things in the market, telling midnight stories, drinking palm wine and taking snuff, in the farm, playing draft) Holy ghost Fire!”
One is tempted to think village people do nothing but witchcraft. They don’t eat, (except Lagos people’s flesh and blood in the dead of the night), they don’t work (The Nigerian Witch Association pays them allowee, they do CDS once a week). They don’t have children, only the smaller witches that they’re rearing to take after them. And even though I can attest from personal experience that witchcraft is real, it still begs the questions are you the only one on earth? Why you? Have I offended God? Did I commit a sin I’m paying for? When you exhaust these options- Come, we’ll then address the village issue)
Unfortunately the kind of things City people is capable of ehn, will give those in the village a goose bumps. Is it village people that are opening Facebook accounts and sharing personal information even to sharing your bank accounts with complete strangers? Digging bore holes with millions of naira, laundering billions on extravagant lifestyle and travels? Is it Village people that are stocking money abroad? Yet it is Village people who are entitled to the remains of the corpse. How witchy can witchcraft get?! Who’s the real witch here?
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