I was scrolling through and caught an article which spoke my mind about Africans and Superstition. Please read.


"An earlier post today broke my heart completely. A defenseless 70 year old woman stripped naked, beaten and eventually tortured to death for the only crime that needs no substantiated proof for anyone to be accused of - witchcraft. I could wake up today and claim I saw someone (who I probably never liked) chasing me around in my dream trying to feed me initiation food and boom, that is enough proof that ''so and so'' is a witch! Why are our minds so dark? Is it just a coincidence that people who are accused of witchcraft are always women, people who are accused of killing their spouses spiritually are also usually women! how many times has a man been made to drink any funny concoctions because he was suspected of killing his wife? Its obvious that people prey on the weak, it would be difficult to accuse a grown man of witchcraft because he can rise to his own defense, apart from the fact that men have always known how to take care of themselves, its women who are always the victims. I have argued this issue with people of more than average intelligence and educational background and a majority of them maintain very strongly that witches exist. They have never encountered one personally but they almost always have a friend of a friend whose mum's sister's friend had an encounter! I know someone who is quite close to me who had a bad dream about someone and proclaimed that the person was a witch. despite my pointing out to her that the night-mare she had about the person was probably because she had extremely negative feelings towards this person, her mind could not be changed. A few years later, she herself was accused of being a witch by someone and she was horrified! She could not imagine how anybody would think she was a witch. I din't want to point out that just as she knows with absolute certainty that she was not a witch that is how she knew then without an iota of doubt that the person she accused had some coven connections.
People do the stupidest things and then blame it on someone ''jazzing'' them because they ultimately know that is the one fool-proof excuse nobody would dispute, no matter how unbelievable it may seem. You marry a second wife despite your friends and family being staunchly against it, fast forward one year and the marriage collapses instead of accepting your mistake like a man you turn around and say she ''jazzed'' you and believe it or not everybody believes it.
Our superstitious beliefs are one thing we Africans are very proud of, until we become the victims of those same superstitions. Forgive my seeming insensitivity - I would not be surprised if anyone told me that before this very unfortunate incident the victim and her daughter Mrs Smith were probably firm believers in the concept of witchcraft, its safe to assume that a majority of us believe in witchcraft so its fair to assume that they might have believed in it as well.
If you had asked our forefathers what could fly in the open skies apart from birds they would have replied only witches could do that, yet we are now masters of the sky, the African man takes his family to the UK for summer, flies to Abuja for business and pleasure yet still believes in witchcraft. Your great grandfather would have labelled you a witch in his time! The Oyinbo man who created the aircraft would fight to his last drop of blood to understand the unknown, we chuck it all up to ''the supernatural'' and go ahead and enjoy the pleasures of the Oyinbo man's discoveries and innovations. Why are our minds so dark?
Its only an African doctor that would tell a patient to go and seek ''home'' solution to a disease he can't even diagnose because of his ignorance and too embarrassed to admit he doesn't understand what he is supposed to be treating, he shuffles you out of his clinic into the arms of the nearest herbalist you can find in your village or to a firebrand pastor who claims he can heal anything. If we were in a sane society, that doctor should have his licence seized but in Nigeria, incompetents like that flourish with the tacit approval of Nigerians with a similar mindset. The human race would have gone extinct if not for the efforts of the western world in curing diseases that affect us and their continued involvement in scientific research that prolongs and improves the quality of our lives. We as Africans enjoy these benefits, thank God for the whiteman.
The western world had its dark ages as well, think back to the Salem witch hunts, those times were dark and barbaric but they moved on, freed their minds and look where they are now? We are fortunate enough to be able to walk down the path they have already trod but do we look back and learn from their history?
The average African proudly proclaims themselves the target of ''spiritual warfare'', like that makes them special, after all you must be doing really well for someone to want to bring you down, right? People regale themselves with unbelievable tales in church to screams of Halleluyah from the rapt congregation in the name of thanksgiving. Some of these tales are so stupendous that ordinarily if you were not hearing it in your church or mosque you would have laughed the person out of the building but with faith, these stories become more palatable.
A while back the some police officers in Kwara state arrested a goat! according to them, they were closing in on a suspect and he turned into a goat to evade capture but they refused to be hoodwinked so they arrested him despite his ''disguise''. People laughed, they were shocked by the ''stupidity'' of the policemen but i wondered, if you had interviewed any of the se policemen he would have told you beyond a shadow of doubt that the suspect actually turned into a goat, that is his level of understanding. What you think is stupid, he would swear his life on. Why do we think our own belief in witchcraft is not stupidity? after all that is our own level of understanding and we would swear by it to the very last? Someone of higher understanding would look at us and think we were the stupidest people on the face of the earth!" Isnt this saddening? culled from moderndayeve..com