Since declaring, I'm a humanist and someone without religion, many respondents have asked if I believe that witches, wizards, demons and evil spirits exist. Some asked, "how do you decide what is right or wrong if you don't believe in God?" I shall address the first part of these important questions in this article and the rest in future articles.
Funke is a six-year-old girl who lives with her uncle and his wife. She lost her parents in a car crash when she was only a few days old. Uncle Segun and his wife, Ngozi, have been married for four years now but have no children of their own. Ngozi has suffered recurrent miscarriages. They have been to different churches and attended various crusades and have done everything they have been told to do - from fasting and prayers, anointing themselves with olive oil, tithing, to paying all the special offerings specifically targeted at couples looking for the fruit of the womb - to no avail. They even carry a white handkerchief that was specially anointed by the General overseer of their church wherever they go. At the end of a week-long session of prayers and fasting atop a hill known simply as Oke, the word of the Lord came to their pastor - Funke is a witch sent by the queen of the coast to destroy their lives. They thought, "Aha, that makes sense. Witches have many lives - no wonder she was the only survivor in that fatal car crash." The pastor asks for a special donation and organises a deliverance service (exorcism) for the little girl. She confesses she is a witch even though she does not know what the word means. She is subjected to months of intensive sessions of prayers and fasting in the church each lasting several days at a time. She is beaten in the belief this will drive out the evil spirits. The week she returns home, Ngozi has another miscarriage and Funke is kicked out of their home. The neighbours have heard stories and avoid Funke like a plague. None of her family members in the village wants her because of the stories that have reached them. Funke now lives on the street.
Lanre was a successful entrepreneur until his business collapsed recently. This coincided with the time his elderly mother moved in to live with him and his family after the death of his father. During a deliverance service, the pastor receives a vision from God for Lanre - his mother is a witch and is responsible for the collapse of his business. Without a second thought, Lanre drives his mother out of his home and cuts all contacts with her. Lanre's mother cannot understand what has come over her only child. He receives a letter from his aunty a few months later informing him of the death of his mother from a heart attack. Two lines in the incisive letter struck him - "if your mother was truly a witch then why did she not kill you in infancy? Why would someone who does not want you to succeed in life spend all their resources to train and educate you, even sending you to school abroad?" He paused for the first time to contemplate the wisdom and truth in his aunty's words.
These are hypothetical situations, but they are not dissimilar to many people's real life experiences. There's nothing in either case that proves the involvement of witches. The truth is there's no evidence that demons, evil spirits, mermaid spirit ("mammy water), the devil, the queen of the coast, witches and wizards exist. There's as much evidence for them as there is for unicorns or the Santa Claus. The people who say witches exist have never seen one but they know someone who knows another person that has seen a witch transforming into a cat or a bird. Like faith healing and other miracles, these transmogrifications have never been captured on camera, but considering how frequently they are famed to occur one wonders why this is. In anticipation of readers' reactions, it's important I state now that the burden of proof is on he that makes a claim - please don't ask me to prove that these entities do not exist because my response would be, "prove to me that the Flying Spaghetti Monster does not orbit the Earth." If you say demons and witches exist, then bring forward your evidence. Nightmares and bad dreams are not admissible. A child who bed-wets or one who convulses is not demon possessed (even though the Bible suggests so). Infertility, diseases or unemployment do not prove the existence of these entities.
I don't believe in miracles or the supernatural. Ultimately, there's an explanation for everything. Just because we can't explain a phenomenon now doesn't mean you get to make up an explanation or attribute it to the supernatural. Nor does it mean there won't be an explanation in the future. No pastor has ever performed a miracle - most of what they claim to be miracles are lies or carefully stage-managed performances. The rest of the time, their supposed miracles can be explained by a knowledge of simple statistics - if you gather thousands of people in an auditorium you are almost guaranteed to find at least one person with a lump on their body, or someone looking for a job (not a surprise in a country like ours with high youth unemployment), or another whose mother has just died of cancer. If you type, "magic explained", into the search box on YouTube you will find a dozen videos that explain the various tricks deployed by magicians to confound their audiences. I was blown away by the magic in this video when it was broadcast live on the X-factor
. If we change the venue to the church and replace the magician with a pastor, we will encounter many gullible Christians who are prepared to believe that a supernatural event (or a miracle) has just happened. Nigerians never question any statement that begins with, "God said . . .", and the charlatans who exploit them know this. Millions of Nigerian Christians believe their pastors have cured all kinds of disease and raised dead people. Permit me to digress for a moment - I do not understand the obsession with resurrection among Pentecostal Christians. What is the point of death if God is just going to keep resurrecting dead people? If He let them die in the first instance then why would He change His mind only to let them die again from diseases, car crashes, religious violence? To me, a miracle is growing an amputated limb or resurrecting someone who has been dead (preferably buried) for several weeks. I am throwing an open challenge to all Nigerian pastors - I will end my scepticism and worship your God if you perform either or both of these miracles.
The belief in witchcraft is a powerful tool for mind control. It has created problems in many homes and led to divorce, children being estranged from parents, mutual distrust between friends, and the cases presented at the beginning of this article exemplify what happens to many families.
A documentary by Stepping Stones in 2009 exposed how children in Akwa Ibom state are subjected to gruesome physical and psychological abuse when they get labelled as witches. In one case, a nail was driven into the skull of a 9-year-old girl. Women accused of witchcraft have been stripped of their clothes, beaten and then burnt alive to death. A quick Google search will reveal the most horrendous videos of how people suspected of being witches are murdered in African societies including ours. Nollywood, Mount Zion Film Ministries (famed for productions such as "Agbara nla") and Pentecostal preachers like Helen Ukpabio have entrenched the belief in witchcraft and evil spirits in the minds of our people through their film industries. The entire doctrine of churches like Mountain of Fire Ministries (MFM) is hinged on the notion of spiritual attacks and generational curses. These have done nothing but produce a generation of paranoid Christians. I'm reminded of a story that happened in one of our banks. A man who had just arrived in the banking hall asked the person at the back of the queue: "are you the last person on the queue?", to which the reply was, "I reject that in Jesus' name. I'm the first and not the last, the head and not the tail." Nigerians became the laughing stock of the world in 2009 when police (or members of a vigilante group, depending on which version of the story you read) arrested a goat suspected of car theft in Kwara state. Apparently, a man had turned himself into the goat to escape arrest (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/nigeria/4325377/Nigerian-police-hold-magic-goat-over-attempted-car-theft.html).
Tormented by paranoia, believers regularly stay up all night (including week days) to pray against evil spirits, witchcraft and demons which they believe to be the cause of illnesses, infertility, misfortune, unemployment, car crashes, and so on. They convince themselves that prayers can stop imaginary, non-existent entities from harming them. The result is that they are often sleep deprived and unproductive at work. And because these vigils are often broadcast through loud speakers it means that their neighbours are equally sleep deprived. Aside from its adverse effect on human health and productivity, sleep deprivation is an important cause of road traffic accidents. Sadly, most of these prayer warriors never sit still to contemplate why they did not do well at the job interview or why their marriage is failing or why they have failed a professional examination. As far as they are concerned their situations are remotely controlled by external agents.
Imagine that the number of man-hours wasted on night vigils were directed to scientific research. Rather than a vision to plant a church on every Nigerian street, imagine if Pastor Adeboye had envisioned the establishment of thousands of science laboratories across the country. Imagine where we would be now. Which nation has grown its economy by gathering its able-bodied men to pray all night? The belief in demons, spirits, and witchcraft in not unique to Nigerians (Africans). It was prevalent in medieval Europe where tribunals were held and those found guilty of witchcraft were summarily executed by being burned alive. This continued until Europe experienced the enlightenment - a radical change of mindset from one based on superstitions to one driven by evidence and science. This is what I'm calling for - a revolution in the way we think as a society.
Before I end, let me briefly address the contentious issue of how the universe came into existence. The truth is: no one knows. Believers insist it was created by their own version of God. When I ask how they know this, they tell me because it said so in the book, written many centuries ago by dessert dwellers, where animals speak to humans, dead people are brought back to life, a man rides on a chariot in the sky, another man walks on water and a virgin got pregnant without sexual intercourse. I don't see how these fantasies are different from those in Harry Potter. And when I ask who created this God, they tell me no one did. Well, if you believe that God, an infinitely complex entity, appeared out of nothing then why can't the Big Bang have happened without a prime mover? I despise the arrogance of those who say they know but cannot provide a shred of evidence. It is far more honourable to admit ignorance than to make up explanations. From my observation, those who dismiss the theories of evolution and the Big Bang are often those who have not taken the time to research the subjects. They ask why humans and animals appear to have stopped evolving, but they forget that evolution has been happening over millions of years (Bible literalists believe the world is only 6000 years old) and therefore imperceptible over the human lifespan. In my view, ignorance is a matter of choice in this Information Age!
I do not delude or believe myself to be Nigeria's messiah, but I know that without a change of mindset, our society will not progress. Superstitions breed distrust and destroy relationships. They encourage indolence and cause us to engage in unproductive ventures. The pervasive belief in witchcraft has rendered us a society of paranoid people and led to the extrajudicial murder of innocent citizens. We have a choice - we can abandon these medieval beliefs and sanitise our society, or we can continue to hold on to them and remain backward.
Ijabla is a medical doctor, and he writes from the U.K. He can be contacted at: [email protected]
