Witchcraft Accusations and Critical Thinking: Combating harmful effects of dogma and superstitions in Africa

Last year, a friend who manages a school in Lagos invited me to organize a critical thinking workshop for her students.

While discussing the program, she noted, "Leo, please do not come here to tell my students that witches do not exist, I beg you". This lady stated this using a tone that was both a plea and a warning. She warned me because telling her students that witches did not exist could negatively impact her school business.

Parents would be displeased and that could make them withdraw their children from the school. This lady wanted me to come to the school and encourage her students to think critically but not regarding witches and witchcraft. Imagine that! Many school owners and board members that I know hold the same view.

Many teachers and school heads would push back on efforts to foster critical thinking because they would not want their students to go home to their parents questioning the existence of witches, gods, spirits, demons, and other supernatural entities. Now, what is the essence of education, in this case fostering critical thinking if students cannot question or interrogate ideas, all ideas?

I have been campaigning against abuses linked to witchcraft beliefs and ritual attacks since the 90s. In 2020, I started the Advocacy for Alleged Witches (AfAW). The AfAW responses to persecutions of alleged witches. As its name states, it advocates for the accused, victims of abuses linked to witchcraft beliefs. It works and campaigns to save, protect, defend, and empower the victims. The AfAW amplifies the voices of alleged witches and gets them to tackle their accusers and challenge their persecutors. In addition, the AfAW examines and challenges beliefs, narratives, and assumptions that motivate people to accuse and abuse others in the name of witchcraft, demonic possession, and other supposed occult or evil forces.

Like most Africans, I was brought up in a community where the belief in witches, ancestors, spirits, gods, and other supernatural entities is strong and pervasive. I repeat, belief in witches, ancestors, spirits, gods, and mermaids because these imaginaries are cognate entities. Because these entities go together. One cannot pick and choose what to believe not to believe. To believe in one implies believing in others. And not believing in one implies disbelieving others.

When I tell people I do not believe in the existence of witches and wizards, by that I mean, I do not think people spiritually fly out at night, and change into birds, or dogs to harm others, some ask me, "Are you a Christian or a Muslim? Do you believe in God? Which church do you attend? While in Ghana, someone asked, Are you not an African? How one replies to these questions determines if the interrogator will continue the conversation or sign off.

African children and youths are socialized to believe that some people have magical and supernatural powers and could use such powers to harm them or their estates. People are brought up not to question or interrogate these ideas and notions, but to preserve the tradition.

The habit of not questioning witchcraft and other religious beliefs forms a part of the social upbringing. This habit shields these superstitions from scrutiny and critical evaluation. It has led to the preservation and handing down of ideas and notions that should have been abandoned or discarded. Unfortunately, these erroneous ideas have been framed as religion or culture; they are deemed sacrosanct and beyond inquiry.

Criticism of these notions is often taken as an offense, a violation of the sensibilities of believers. Critics could be accused of racism or islamophobia. And in consequence, they could suffer structural or sometimes physical violence. As a ‘social duty’, these mistaken notions are forced down the throats of infants and youths from one generation to another.

For instance, in my country, people are brought up to believe that those who live in the villages and rural communities could use their supposed occult or supernatural powers to cause accidents, infertility, death, and other misfortune to relatives who live in cities and some overseas. People who entertain these beliefs and notions are not illiterates, uneducated people, but in many cases well-educated people, doctoral degree holders, and sometimes professors in universities.

Often many of the persons so accused have not physically been to cities; they have not traveled beyond their communities or countries. While doing my fieldwork in Ghana, I met a woman whose daughter, living in the US, accused. In another case, a woman was accused of being responsible for the death of another woman who died as a result of an electrocution in Accra, the capital of Ghana. In the course of my conversation with the accused, she asked me, how could I have gone to Accra to kill this woman, when I did not know the road to Accra?

Another woman accused of killing the daughter asked me, “How could I have killed my daughter now she is an adult and could take care of me? Look I did not do so when she was a baby, was vulnerable when I breastfed and took care of her”. Unfortunately, these thoughtful expressions make no sense to witchcraft accusers and witch hunters.

People believe their enemies could spiritually travel to harm and undermine their health, wealth, and progress. Thus when people suffer any misfortune they suspect some occult plot and scheme. Even the highly educated ones including professors of science, philosophy, and logic; those living here in the UK or the US strongly hold to these beliefs and use them to make sense of their day-to-day experiences.

A Nigerian colleague who is a university professor told me that a dead person spoke to him and he made use of that encounter in resolving some family dispute. When I challenged him, he told me it was his subjective experience and I could not dispute or discount it.

Others try to shut down critical voices. They accuse one of disrespecting their beliefs. In some cases, their line of defense and justification is often this: “Look, we are Africans”. They make it seem as if to be an African means to be hard-wired to blind faith, magical, occultic, and superstitious thinking and belief. Sometimes, they would say: “not everything is scientifically or logically explainable”. Or they would westernize science and locate their beliefs outside the cannons of Western science. They go to any length to persuade or to find some justification for their outlandish beliefs and claims.

It is pertinent to note that these irrational beliefs do not end as abstracts or at theoretical levels. They have real consequences, especially for the suspected, and the accused. These counterintuitive notions inform actions, mob actions of revenge, attack, violence, and cold-blooded murder of supposed witches or occult harmers. Accusers and suspecters of witchcraft directly confront alleged witches. In cases where they cannot directly attack or tackle supposed witches or occultists, they incite violence and jungle justice against the accused.

In addition, people strongly believe that some sacrifice of human body parts could yield money, success in elections, business, and wealth. Thus some people who want to become rich, and successful consult some religious and occult experts. These ritual experts ask them to go and get some body parts for sacrifice. From time to time people, both children, youths, and adults, are caught with human body parts.

In mainstream and social media, there are often reports of mutilated bodies of those killed by ritualists. There are reports of some police arrests of suspected ritualists but after that, nothing is heard about these reported cases until another incident occurs. In August, someone posted on X formerly known as Twitter, the case of a 16-year-old boy. He abducted, strangled, and mutilated a 4-year-old boy for ritual purposes. There have been cases of ritual killings linked to youths who are involved in internet scams, politicians seeking reelections, and miners and fishermen killing people with albinism in Tanzania and other parts of southern Africa.

In response to this situation, two programs, advocacy for alleged witches and promotion of critical thinking have been launched. In the short term, we advocate against witch persecution, and rescue, rehabilitate, defend, and empower victims. We help victims and their families to respond and neutralize allegations and imputation of occult harm. We support victims and help them report cases to the police, have legal representation in court, get medical care and temporary shelter, or support their education and training. This year we have intervened in over 30 cases of accusations in Nigeria.

In the long term, we work and campaign to foster critical thinking in all areas of human endeavor. At the primary school level, critical thinking is framed as a form of questionstorm. Students are encouraged to question ideas and experiences in all areas of human endeavor. At the moment we are developing critical thinking learning materials that encourage children to question and challenge whatever they are taught or told. We organize workshops for teachers and students, and lobby state education boards to introduce the teaching of critical thinking in schools.

So far, the first edition of the primaries 1 to 3 texts and other learning aid materials have been produced. These materials address critical thinking needs of elementary schoolers. Other critical thinking resources like charts have been developed. The program has a website where these materials are displayed. The site is still a work in progress. The texts and charts have been used to organize workshops for pupils and teachers in selected schools.

So far, over two thousand teachers and three thousand students have participated in the workshops. With robust advocacy against witch persecution and the promotion of critical thinking in schools and society, we hope to beat back the tide of witch-hunting, religious extremism, and superstition-based abuses in the region.

Leo Igwe works and campaigns to foster critical thinking skills in schools