Superstition is a global phenomenon. Every society (worldwide) has a belief it holds on to. Superstition feeds on omens, good or bad. For instance, an itchy palm suggests that some cool money is coming your way. Similarly, if you unconsciously wear a dress inside out, you are persuaded to believe that a fortune is by the doorstep. If the inside of your foot or feet itches, it is an indication of an impending journey. Kicking a stone with your left foot is believed to be a bad omen, while a kick with the right foot is a good sign. But I have on many occasions worn my T-shirts inside out and no money is seen till date or used a metal object to scratch under my foot and no journey is undertaken immediately after.
Several years ago, I was heading back to Jos after attending a media briefing for editors addressed by the late stern-looking chief of staff, Supreme Headquarters, Brig. Tunde Idiagbon, at the State House, Marina, Lagos, during the Buhari regime of the early 80s. We had been called out to file into the aircraft at the domestic wing of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos. As we shuffled along, my left foot hit an object and I nearly lost my balance. I was overwhelmed by the superstitious belief that something disastrous awaited us behind the clouds. I was tempted to pull out of the queue. But I resisted the temptation desperately because the cash on me fell below a one-night hotel bill that the pull-out would entail. So, I did something funny. I deliberately kicked the tarmac with my right in-step in the belief that I had neutralised the bad omen and flowed with the queue… into the Nigeria Airways-owned aircraft.
Then midway in the air, we ran into potholes as the plane was rocked, which is normal during a flight when the aircraft tear through the thick clouds. But my heart began to skip. Was I warned by that left-foot kick? But what about the right-foot neutraliser?! I had my heart in my mouth and I did not like the taste until we landed safely at the Yakubu Gowon Airport, Heipang. If the plane had dropped from the sky and I was fortunate to survive the crash, I would have blamed myself for not being superstitious enough to heed the life-saving warning from the left foot.
Superstition has been so entrenched in this country that the birth of twins was seen in the Calabar axis as evil until the Scottish missionary, Mary Slessor (1848 – 1915), came and rescued the minds of the natives from the murderous belief.
I don’t so much worship in the temple of superstition right from time even though I have lived my entire life in a society where the belief is very strong. It is said that what you fear has a way of coming to pass. Similarly, what you wish for can also come your way. If you don’t have a (strong) mind of your own, you can easily be bought over by superstitists (my coinage for believers in superstition) around you. But anyone who is well exposed, who believes in God and is deeply grounded in His word will not be at home in the temple of superstition.
A few days ago, a 17-year-old Tiv boy named Agado Iorzenda allegedly shot his biological mother to death with a locally made gun.
Confessing to his heinous crime, Agado was quoted as saying: “I went to consult the oracle over my impotence and I was told that my mother used my manhood for witchcraft and rendered me impotent. She did not want me to be a man. So my friend advised me to kill her so as to use her blood to acquire spiritual powers that will help me become rich and also do many other things. That was why I shot her.”
Agado was not the first “superstitist” to commit matricide. A few years ago, a young man in Ondo/Ekiti axis was reported to have murdered his mother because a witchdoctor told him that the poor woman was responsible for his inability to bed women. I did a piece on that tragedy in my humour column in the LEADERSHIP but could not locate the clip. The Katsina-Ala disaster was too similar for comfort.
However, it is not the witchdoctors alone that are ministering in the temple of superstition. Self-styled prophets and deliverance pastors have imported the belief into the church system over the years. Consequently, they have branded thousands of children as witches and enemies within their families. And (stigmatised) children who are the major targets are tortured, abandoned on regular basis and even murdered, while the so-called men of God make money from their scared parents and communities in the name of exorcism.
Most so-called prayer houses and/or spiritual homes have become fertile grounds for superstition. The so-called pastors and prophets, greedy for cash, brainwash their followers and patrons that many problems they are facing, like poverty, joblessness, financial crisis, sickness or poor returns on investments are all caused by a witch-child lurking in their families. Then, the pastors would promise that they would cast the witchcraft spirits out of their children.
For their deliverance seances, they charge the poor parents the amounts which most of them are not able to pay. Thereafter, the superstitious parents would start to guess who among their children is a witch. Of course, the ones that have something different about them… the most mischievous, strong-willed or the most intelligent or those with serious health challenges like epilepsy or sickle cell anemia would be the primary suspects. The culprits are then made to confess under duress that they are witches. That is the extent to which those prophets have dragged the church into the realm of superstition.
From the modus operandi of these pastors and prophets, it is obvious that they are not true men of God as they claim. Jesus Christ healed the sick, cast out evil spirits, raised the dead, made the blind to see and the deaf to hear, and cured even epilepsy without torturing anyone. He never went about wielding koboko or a big stick. He merely spoke the words or laid his hands on the victims and they received healing or deliverance. So, by their fruits, we can conclude that these murderous pastors are from the pit of hell.
Foot note: This piece was first published on May 19, 2016. It is reproduced because of its relevance till date.
