Sirlovings:


Your comment is baseless with no single logic. If you have lived outside Africa for a long time, you would realize that mental illness is a serious issue in Africa because most African governments don't invest in psychiatric hospitals.

So most people read religious/spiritual meaning into it instead of looking for ways to help the patients, they are condemned as witches or wizards.

I can tell you that the woman is only suffering from mental disorder. If she is living in a developed country, she will be in a mental facility getting better and learning how to manage her illness.

There are many different types of mental disorders. So please get knowledge and ask God for wisdom to understand things.
Don't let Nigerian/African pastors to deceive you for their own personal gain.

freecocoa:
I'm tired, as in, I don tire.

Phonefanatic:


Don't twist the law so what if the accused confesses of such act?
You call the person deranged?

AreaFada2:


Even traditionally, beating is not the normal thing. Although it happens.

People who confessed cleanly and tell all the evil they have done are used to swear an oath of the land and maybe at shrines of the community. That they will henceforth desist from evil & use their metaphysical prowess only to do good. And perhaps certain fines imposed on them.

In fact of old, it was quite accepted that witches & wizards were a vital part of the community, if only they would desist from doing evil.
The best medicine men boasted of being witches.....but ones that did not attend evil meetings in the coven or consume human meat or blood in the coven. But nonetheless able to see all that was happening there. Even if unable to prevent it. It was that knowledge of those secrets that medicine men used to release/buy off those condemned to destruction in the coven. Be it illness, poverty, misfortune, childlessness, death, etc.

As kids, we heard many such stories from old relatives (in their 80s, 90s then) about events of their own childhood.

We Africans have not researched African metaphysics or lack of it properly. We seemed believe that only Westerners have monopoly over truth. Africans cannot be right, if their experience or ideas differ from Western ones. That seems to be the prevailing position.

theoneJabulani:
And when did that happen? The dark ages, 5 centuries ago when science was at its infantry. People suffering from Schizophrenia were executed cos people thought they were communicating with demons. Only the uneducated believe in things like this

timeman:
SE & Stripping are siamese twins. They would strip common individuals but would not do so to their politicians. Land of the missing sun
Kiss the truth!

cyrilamx:
Guy in today United States, people cos of their unbelief in these preternatural powers and romancing with anything astral, has exposed them to all sorts of demonic attacks. In the beginning, they will think it just psychological problem only for the said psychologist to refer them to Catholic priest's for exorcism. Let be honest with our selves the lack of belief in existence of such is dangerous. Go to Italy and see the increasing case of people afflicted by these evil forces. Science, you are right, has come to disprove most of things hitherto attributed to witchcraft, but also by not believing in this black science or the occult practices especially in public, has give them room to fester. Most eminent scientists are occultists. No matter our level of advancement, witches do exist and in order to make it appealing, the whites now categorise them as white and black witches. For your info, witchcraft is studied in a university in California.

omonnakoda:
That is not relevant, some people believe and some don't you will not change anyone's mind and no one will change yours on that subject, no need to start an endless argument.

You don't go to a man's funeral and pass a message that when he was alive he had body odour. That is a foolish message, there is a correct time and place for everything. If you want to debate the reality of witches create a thread for that. It is insensitive and callous that the reality of witchcraft is the most important issue here and not the suffering of the woman. The issue is even if witches are real do we force them to confess by public lynching? Do we have a credible way of identifying witches so we can roast them or stone them to death?

theoneJabulani:
were our witches and wizards on loan when the slave masters came? Besides, european believe in witchcraft died down centuries ago after the embarrassing Salem witch hunts. So why are we still stuck in such backwardness?

benjamin007:
Suffer not a witch to live, in other words in Spartan voice KILL THEM ALL

walemoney007:
see the way an African man is thinking like oyinbo

By the time this witches handle you,you will start running from MFM to cele,and that's if you are lucky not to be killed
Africa is not Europe
Europeans are not Africans

HungerBAD:
Barbarians.

Do people really believe in witches and wizards?why do we give so much powers to none existence things?why are we Africans still shackled in the Caveman's mentality?

This is a clear case of a mentally challenged person,and instead of sympathy,and help to be offered to her,the perverts from this town stripped her of her clothes,so they can have a peep of her old privates.

Shame on them.

Are there no Police in this town?during my Service days,a mentally challenged man in the Community I usually give money or buy food for,one day whispered to me that he killed Herbert Macaulay. Herbert Macaulay died in 1946.

My point is. Mentally challenged people,say things they are not even aware they say.

This woman should be released to her relatives for treatment,instead of beating her into confessing what she knows nothing about.

madridguy:
As African man, I believe in the existence of Witches/Wizard but since there is no physical proof to nail any accused person, beating this harmless woman is totally barbaric. I wish the woman can get justice.

histemple:


What is your definition of confession? The only legally binding and accepted confession is that which is done without threat of any kind, in the court.

That is why a person can deny a statement written at the police station and even allege that it was written under duress.

The truth is, if any activist takes this woman's case to court, all those who attacked the woman, will be sorry for themselves and they may even end up in jail.

Dnnnn:

If you say witch no dey exist no Your fault. Let's say u sleep for bed after quarrel, wake up from bush d nxt morning your eye go clear.

theoneJabulani:
Got better things to do than blaming my misfortune on innocent or imaginary beings. I would rather look for ways to correct and prevent such from happening again

Mindfulness:


Educate them, they need education urgently.

In Europe people who suffer from psychosis get medication which enables them to function normally but these people believe in violence in the name of stewpidity.

Mindfulness:


Educate them, they need education urgently.

In Europe people who suffer from psychosis get medication which enables them to function normally but these people believe in violence in the name of stewpidity.

HungerBAD:


I lived in England for almost 10 Years,before relocating to where I am now for greener pasture years ago.

I am well conversant with their history of burning perceived witches. They did not know better then,until they knew better.

But that was Hundreds of Years ago,and in Nigeria it is happening in 2016.

I even flew one time to Romania,to visit Count Dracula's Castle, for Research on one of my School Dissertations then,just to ascertain if really he drank blood as widely believed.

Civilizations have moved pass this Barbaric level.

Don't know why the picture of this woman beat up like this,upset me in a personal way.

timeman:
@somegirl1, I couldn't imagine urhobo being igbo, but igbos claim almost everything. If it bears an igbo name, speak,shares neighbourhood, it's igbo, so does igbos claim... Not my fault either.
The truth has spoken!

Phonefanatic:


Please educate me on the meaning of Exorcism. Does it have something to do with medical treatment?

cococandy:

Me too.

I don't know if there is anything else anyone can say on this issue and those similar to it that's hasn't been said:
I'm honestly really tired.

Phonefanatic:


You still don't get it probably because you haven't had a first hand experience. At first nobody threatens or inflict physical harm on this people, they make their confessions under no threat till it gets to a point where their atrocities generates a thunderstorm slap from the onlookers.

Like I said you haven't had a first hand experience and I don't expect anyone who grew in the city to know what I'm saying.
I pray you, your children or someone close to you experience firsthand witchcraft if that is what is needed to clear your doubts.

I have seen 2 women making confessions while growing up. One happens to be a popular woman that fries Akara at a busy junction. She's got absolutely no record of being deranged and one early morning she sat in front of her Akara shop confessing her atrocities which was 100% witchcraft. Nobody laid hand on her nor threatened to hit her single her shop was next to the police station.

To cut the story short the police came and took this woman of which she went back to her Akara business a week later but this time no one patronized her after a horrible confession. She didn't make it pass 2 weeks before she died mysteriously.

histemple:


Perhaps you are thinking I am a foreigner, no I am not. In fact, I possibly might have more of such experience than you. I grew up in the village (very remote one at that) and so, I know about witches a lot. I know witches, juju and charms exist and nobody can doubt their existence because even the bible and Qur'an acknowledged their existence and efficacy.

If you read through my lines carefully, you will observe that I am only educating those attackers about the position of the law, because the court pretends not to know about their existence. Read our Criminal Code Act 213(b) where the law says only the accused can prove to be a witch or not.

As a lawyer, I can tell you that nobody has been able to prove a case of charms, juju or witchcraft. Anything abstract can't be proven in a court.

In the instant case, I am not doubting the possibility of voluntary confession but the part of bodily harm is where I have a legal problem.