Witchcraft in Nigeria: The man preventing ‘witch hunters’

Activist Leo Igwe is on the forefront of efforts to assist folks accused of witchcraft in Nigeria, as it may destroy their lives and even result in lynching.

“I could not stand it anymore. You know, simply standing there and seeing folks being killed randomly,” Dr Igwe tells the BBC.

After receiving his doctorate in spiritual research in 2017, he was stressed. He had written extensively about witchcraft and was annoyed that academia didn’t permit him to problem the follow head on.

The BBC has seen proof of Pentecostal pastors in Nigeria holding providers in opposition to alleged witches, a follow which Dr Igwe stated is just not uncommon in a rustic the place many individuals consider within the supernatural.

Warning: This article accommodates particulars that some readers could discover disturbing.

So Dr. Igwe based Advocacy For Alleged Witches, a corporation targeted on “utilizing compassion, cause and science to avoid wasting the lives of these affected by superstition.”

Dr. Igwe’s prevention work additionally extends to Ghana, Kenya, Malawi and Zimbabwe and past.

One of the folks the group has helped in Nigeria is 33-year-old Jude. In August she intervened when he was accused and crushed in Benue state.

Jude, a glassmaker, who additionally works part-time in a financial institution, says that one morning he was on his technique to work when he met a boy carrying two heavy jars of water and this prompted him to touch upon the boy’s bodily agility. .

The boy didn’t take kindly to the feedback, however went his personal manner.

Later, Jude was adopted by a crowd of round 15 folks throwing stones at him. Among them was the boy he had greeted earlier.

“Even younger folks began preventing with me, attempting to set me on fireplace,” Jude says.

He was accused of inflicting the boy’s penis to vanish by means of witchcraft, an accusation that shocked him and which is unfaithful.

Reports of lacking males are usually not unusual in elements of West Africa.

It’s an announcement that has been linked to Koro syndromea psychological sickness in any other case often known as lacking or genital retraction hysteria.

It is a psychiatric dysfunction characterised by an intense and irrational worry that the genital organs will disappear or retreat into the sufferer’s physique.

Dr Igwe says Jude misplaced his job on the financial institution due to the stigma surrounding the accusation.

A video of the violent witch-hunt altercation additionally began circulating on Facebook, and that is when Dr. Igwe and his workforce took discover and began investigating.

“They took him (Jude) bare, you understand, brutalized him,” Dr. Igwe says. “First of all, let’s find it: the place is it taking place?”

On WhatsApp, Dr. Igwe is an influencer of kinds.

In current years he has created and curated WhatsApp teams for numerous Nigerian states.

These teams are full of dozens of involved residents who he calls “advocates.” They share viral movies and images of witchcraft accusations and attempt to intervene when an accusation is made on their territory.

“We contacted him (Jude). We despatched him cash to deal with his wounds. We rehabilitate him socially,” says Dr Igwe.

Advocacy for Alleged Witches additionally wrote to the financial institution to attempt to forestall Jude from being sacked, though they’ve had no response, she says.

The group has additionally pledged to pay Jude’s college charges, which they hope will present him with a contemporary begin.

Many in Africa’s most populous nation consider in and dwell in worry of witches and the diabolical powers they supposedly wield.

Financial issues, sickness or infertility are sometimes attributed to witchcraft.

The accused are sometimes weak. In most circumstances they’re very younger or very outdated, typically they’ve psychological or bodily disabilities and infrequently dwell in poverty.

Second Look at Nigeriaa web site that tracks violence within the nation by means of media experiences, there have been eight deaths ensuing straight from witchcraft accusations in 2024.

The BBC has not independently verified these figures, however has beforehand reported assaults and murders of individuals accused of witchcraft in Nigeria AND beyond.

“Belief in witchcraft or the supernatural in Nigeria is cultural,” says Dr Olaleye Kayode, a senior lecturer in African indigenous religions on the University of Ibadan.

“The perception is that witches are one of many supernatural beings created by God to shake up the affairs of the Earth,” he provides, whereas stating that it’s ignorance that drives folks to advertise witch hunts.

He blames the witch hunts in Nigeria primarily on the preaching of “international religions” equivalent to Christianity and Islam, however acknowledges that conventional religions additionally “wage conflict” on witches.

Dr Igwe says a few of the nation’s many influential Pentecostal Christian pastors reinforce superstitions about witchcraft and the concept that “any alleged witch is harmful to society, deserves no mercy and must be killed.”

While a few of these spiritual occasions are marketed as deliverance providers, in August certainly one of them was marketed below the theme “That witch should die.”

The church behind the occasion extensively lined it to its 20,000 followers on social media.

When Dr Igwe noticed a billboard in Imo State promoting it, he wrote a number of petitions to native authorities, in addition to a sequence of articles for native media, attempting to get it taken down.

It went forward anyway: Advocacy For Alleged Witches despatched observers and continues to foyer in opposition to related occasions.

The church accountable didn’t reply to the BBC’s request for remark.

No one was killed throughout the Imo State occasion, however “witches should die” rhetoric coming from church buildings can result in hatred and violence, Dr Igwe says.

And many Nigerian church buildings are in opposition to such attitudes.

“Expelling demons and never killing these possessed by demons is what we all know the ministry of Jesus for,” says Julius Osimen, senior pastor on the Global Citizens Church in Lagos.

Osimen describes any preaching that encourages witch hunts as a misinterpretation of Bible verses.

“When Jesus got here, he got here with a greater understanding. You do not kill folks possessed or oppressed by demons, you merely ward off the demons,” he says.

Dr Igwe’s work got here at a private value. He says he was crushed 3 times for intervening on behalf of these accused of being witches and acknowledges that his spouse and youngsters have expressed concern for his security.

But the activist says nothing will make him abstain or cease him from intervening: “My understanding is that I’ve to step up and attempt to present management.”

In Nigeria it’s a felony offense to accuse, or threaten to accuse, any particular person of being a witch or of getting the ability of witchcraft.

The most jail sentence is 2 years. However, prosecutions and convictions are uncommon.

In 2021 the United Nations Human Rights Council handed a decision condemning human rights violations related to witchcraft, however such allegations proceed to persist throughout a lot of Africa, in addition to India and Papua New Guinea.

“Trying to finish witch hunts is a problem, and we should not in any manner romanticize it by attempting to say, ‘Oh, it is a part of our tradition,’” says Dr. Igwe.

“It is just not a part of our tradition to kill our mother and father. It is just not a part of our tradition to kill harmless folks.”