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Okey Ndibe
I had not planned to write today about Nigeria's savaged
children. The subject thrust itself on me.
A lot of other topics and issues had jostled for my
attention. I had wanted to devote today's column to a
celebration of Adams Oshiomhole's legal triumph. After
spending a year and a half in the courts to claim his
governorship mandate from the usurper called Oserhiemen
Osunbor, the former labor leader got his prize restored
last week. The victory, which came after many shameful
verdicts by the Court of Appeal, called for measured
celebration. Even so, I was going to pause at some point
to insert a note of disappointment about Mr.
Oshiomhole's early and bizarre misstep his hurried trip
to Abuja to pledge loyalty to Mr. Umaru Yar'Adua.
Surely, a man of Oshiomhole's mettle ought to know that
the people of Edo State, not the occupant of Aso Rock,
are his true employers. His loyalty is, or should be, to
them.
I had thought to revisit Maurice Iwu, the embodiment of
rigging, a man whose every speech appears calculated to
traumatize Nigerians. Iwu has lately rigged a so-called
“Man of the Year” award from a rogue faction of the
National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS).
I contemplated beaming a searchlight on Speaker Dimeji
Bankole and his cast of gluttons pretending to be
lawmakers. Mr. Bankole's decision to sink N2.3 billion
to buy more than three hundred Peugeot 407 cars for
himself and many other members of the House of
Representatives is another testimony to careless greed.
This is a legislative body that stood unconcerned as
Nigerian children lost five weeks of classes because
their teachers went on strike to demand better pay. And
what were the teachers asking for? A guaranteed minimum
of N20,000 per month, the kind of sum these legislators
spend on one meal in Abuja. By any measure but
especially considering the cost of living in many parts
of Nigeria N20,000 is a mere pittance. Yet, Bankole, who
takes home millions of naira each month for little or no
work done, gallivants around the globe at the Nigerian
taxpayer's expense, and is spending N5.2 million to
outfit himself with a new bullet-proof car, did not
appear to lose sleep over the teachers' strike much less
their pupils' plight.
Another potential subject was the latest chilling act by
some ratings of the Nigerian Navy. Last week, according
to newspaper reports, they set upon a policeman in
Abeokuta, Ogun State, and killed him. This tragic outing
came less than two weeks after six ratings pummeled the
daylight out of a young, wiry woman named Uzoma Okere.
After reading accounts of the hapless police officer's
gruesome death, I imagined Ms. Okere in the quietude of
her room thanking God that she made it out alive. Since
it's been more than a week since several 'authorities,”
including Yar'Adua “ordered” full investigations, I was
going to ask if the investigators had flown to China,
Dubai and London to hunt down the “facts of the matter.”
There was the other subject, reported in the Punch, to
the effect that Enugu State was spending N200 million to
send its entire legislative team to a two-week jamboree
in London to learn about parliamentary issues. Why
doesn't the state send all its doctors to the U.S. to
learn the latest surgical and therapeutic procedures;
all its teachers to Japan, to master the secrets of
turning students into math geniuses; all its journalists
to Fleet Street, England; all its civil servants to
Sweden; all its small-time thieves to Italy to learn how
to become big-time mafia gangsters. Why not, since the
state apparently has more money than its officials know
what to do with?
In the midst of weighing all these subjects, I decided
to take a peep at a popular website tagged
www.nigeriavillagesquare.com. It was there I saw a
report titled “Horror in Akwa Ibom.” Curious, I clicked
on an accompanying video link. In a fraction of a
second, I was transported to one of the most gruesome,
barbaric and dehumanizing documentaries I've ever
watched. The reel revealed a documentary run on
Britain's Channel 4 TV channel and captioned “Saving
Africa's Witch Children.” In an instant, I was placed in
front of a wrenching gallery of savagery, horror and
cruelty perpetrated at children. Innocent, helpless
children!
For some minutes, I gazed in absolute shock. I shook
with shame, revulsion and rage at these graphic images
of children killed, mutilated, burned, starved and
abandoned, all on the grounds that they are “witches and
wizards.” A shirtless man in a village looks straight at
the camera and states with deadpan ease, “I want to kill
that small girl.” Another woman, apparently a mother,
pointed to two or three of her children and said they
had confessed to killing their grandmother with
witchcraft! The camera pans to a young, big-eyed girl,
her expression one of shy befuddlement. Then the
narrator explains: “This is the story of Africa's child
witches, like five-year old Mary denounced as Satan made
flesh.”
One girl tells how her “senior” brother poured boiling
water on her, scalding her skin. Another girl's torso
shows the hideous injury inflicted when her father made
her sit on a fire. There's the story of a thirteen-year
old girl, stooped on the ground, her skull still showing
the scar of a nail driven into it!
Then there's a man named “Bishop” Sunday Ulup-Aya, a
self-styled “poison destroyer,” the poison he destroys
being witchcraft, and the bearers of that poison being
innocent children. Some of the accused witches and
wizards are still toddlers. Before they have learned to
walk, they have been diagnosed as blood-sucking witches
or wizards by “Bishop” Mad and his fellow traders in
superstition posing as followers of Christ.
White-gowned with a huge red ribbon around his waist, a
red wool cap on his head, the “bishop” is a portrait of
a madman as a healer. Watching the videotape of his
rituals of deliverance, I recognize him as a charlatan,
fraud artist and salesman of deception who has started
his own tragic cottage industry.
Channel 4's documentary estimates that as many as 15,000
children in Akwa Ibom have been branded as witches. They
must have grossly underestimated. “Bishop,” who charges
as much as N400,000 naira to “destroy” each case of
witchcraft, states that Akwa Ibom harbors 2.3 million
witches and wizards. The man is shown in the report as
he hands a dazed child “wizard” a potion to drink. The
concoction, according to the report, contains “pure
alcohol, a substance called African mercury, and the
'bishop's' own blood.” The bishop, who speaks in
halting, ungrammatical English, boasts: “I killed up to
110 people who was identified to be a winch.”
To watch the documentary is to be confronted by fresh
stark evidence of the broad devaluation of life in the
space called Nigeria. What factors produced a depth of
ignorance and superstition so powerful that parents
would brutally maim their own children in the name of
fighting witchcraft? Where were the police and other
investigative apparatuses of state power as hundreds,
perhaps thousands, of children were being tortured and
killed, stigmatized as demonic forces? Why had the
police not arrested “Bishop” Ulup-Aya, a confessed
serial murderer who feeds hapless children his own blood
to drink? Why did it take a lone, horrified Britisher to
unearth this scandal, this twenty-first holocaust
happening right in the glare of sunlight?
Nigeria has notoriety as a place where nobody is ever
held responsible for anything. Yet, on this one, both
the commissioner of police as well as the state director
of the State Security Services should explain why they
didn't detect, or stop, this horror. They deserve to be
fired for slumbering while bestial parents as well as
madmen and women made innocent children to see hell.
This whole tragedy exposes the grave dangers of leaving
unchecked the emergence of fraudsters who style
themselves men or women of God. As Nigeria's misery
index has risen, many citizens unable to put food on the
table, or to gain access to healthcare, or to generally
live with the dignity of human beings have taken to
superstition, make-belief and magic. Instead of
recognizing the objective factors and forces that
devalue their lives, they accept some pastor or imam's
lie that they are victims of “spiritual attack” by
diabolical neighbors or even sinister relatives.
The horror of Akwa Ibom is a wake-up call. A society
that would cast children in the role of these
“spiritual” enemies and tormentors is an abomination.
(For more on Okey Ndibe, please visit:
www.okeyndibe.com)
Child
Witches In Nigeria
Anselm Kpokpo
Much concern have been expressed by Nigerians about
witches that the horror it exact becomes terrific that
it has resulted to an infringement to the fundamental
rights of those accused of witch craft. it has become
palpable that majority of right thinking people no
longer give thought to its fragrant abuse in our
communities. more worried some is the fact that people
could hold a believe that a child could be a witch and
therefore subjected to every form of inhuman degradation
and treatment that is not even melted to adults.
children are as innocent as nature and that is why we
were told in the holy book to emulate and be like
children in our relationship with our fellow human
being. In other words been like children bring forth the
Christ life, the Christian life we are all trying to
live and be. this is what we are all taught by the
author of the Christian faith and no matter what the
churches more especially the Pentecostal denomination in
Nigeria preach they cannot profess the Christian faith
better than its author who had enjoin us to love
children. it will be pertinent to look into our laws to
see how it has dealt with such issues especially our
case law to see whether it is reasonable to abuse the
right of children on the ground that the child is a
witch. In the case of Gadam v. R (1954) 14 WACA. 442.in
this case the accused believe that the miscarriage and
mortal illness of his wife was due to the witchcraft of
an old woman and based on that believe he killed the
woman with a hoe, at the trial it was the finding of
fact that a belief in witchcraft was prevalent in their
community. The court held that such a believe was
unreasonable . the court cited an unreported case of
Ifereonwe v. R were the same court also held that where
a man kills another in the belief that he is be witched
by him that mistake could not be regarded as reasonable.
It is in this light that we hold that the cruel
dehumanizing treatment melted out to the children under
the guise that they are witch is unacceptable and
affront on the laws of our land. Nigeria adopted The
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in
November 1989 and was signed that same year, by 1991 it
was ratified. this convention is an agreement signed by
many countries, the implication is that by signing the
convention Nigeria has agreed to be bound by the
convention and to obey its rules. this convention
clearly spelt out the rights of the child which is a
basic right to all the children which include the right
to survive which is a basic right as ordain by the
creator of which nobody has right to infringe under any
guise other basic rights are the rights to be protected,
to be developed and to participate. Article 6 states
that children have the right to life and by Article 9 &
18 of the convention Every child has the right to live
with his/ her parents be brought up by both of them or
guardian; and should not be separated from them unless
in the Childs best interest. if a child is separated
from his/her parents, he/she has the right to be in
contact with them. Also by Article 26 : children have
the right to state maintenance( food, cloths, housing )
where their parents/guardian are unable to do so. it is
clearly on this tenets that the abuse of children on the
guise that they are witch stands condemnable and the
violators should be brought to book. It is also here
that the good work of Gary Foxcroft stands commendable
towards his work in raising money for the work of the
Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network. With the aim of
trying to persuade parents to take their children back
and to psychologically reoriente the child that they are
not witch and also to help build school for children who
are refused places at local school. it is also
instructive to note that Mr Foxcroft with all the witch
children staged a demonstration at the Akwa Ibom State
Government House Uyo the State capital and the
government was urged to adopt the child right act. the
act was accordingly adopted and made into law. yet in
accordance with the spirit of the act non of the
violators of the right of children in the state have
been arrested and charged to court, the government have
also failed to live up to its expectation I line with
the provision of the act. This has made certain question
to beg for an answer to the effect that what would be
the faith of this innocent children if not for the
philanthropies of Gray Foxcroft. Is it an indication
that our country is not prepared to find solution to its
own problem. Does not the government of Akwa Ibom State
have the moral and legal right for the responsibility of
this innocent children. What will make parent believe
that their children are witch and Christians to have
such believe, it is inconceivable what children who
should be taken care of by their parents are passing
through in Nigeria. this is so because a situation were
one hundred and fifty children are made homeless merely
on the fact that they are being branded witches by been
subjected to all forms of torture ranging from being
beaten, acid been poured on them, their body been
slashed with knife or been thrown into fire they are
made to confess that they are witch does not tell of a
country that has regard for its citizen. what is more
disturbing is that it is the Pentecostal churches that
is championing the act that those children are witch and
therefore deserved to be abused. they are able to
brainwash their parent to believing that the children
are devils children and except they are delivered they
will bring untold hardship, bad omen and that they will
initiate other of their children to the witch world.
This fear made parents to abandon their own children
therefore i hold that under no circumstances can
children who are created by God be a witch. The children
pitiable as they are passing through this ugly incidence
of life with no fault of theirs deserves our sympathy
and care. the government of Akwa Ibom should marshal out
funds for the upkeep of the children and investigate
through the law enforcement agent and bring all the
violators of these children to book.
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