The Village witch by Abdulrazaq O Hamzat When we achieve success, nobody remembers the village witches, but if we suffer slight discomfort or misfortune, it's their fault from the village. We say to ourselves, maybe our village people are after my destiny. Using Yoruba coinage, ''won tele e lati abule '' them dey follow you from village. It's our way of finding scape goat. 100 youths left the village in search of greener pasture in the city. Among them, 10 become wealthy. Extremely wealthy. Nobody praise the village witches for helping those 10 succeed. Shame unto the witches and wizards. 70 become averagely OK. I mean, living a conformable life devoid of extreme hardship, nor so much sufficiency. The village winch, as we often call them are not remembered and thanked for their generosity. The glory, we often say, is to God almighty. Then, the remaining 20 could not find any headway in life due to I'll luck or bad choices. Always moving from one challenges to the other and suddenly, we remember, '' won tele won lati abule '', village winch dey follow them. Come to think about it, If you do not give the village winch credit for those who succeeded, how can you blame them for those who do not? This wrong frame of mind had led many into abandoning their home town under the guise of running away from some imaginary enemy. Some have abandoned their parents, friends and families for life. They are scared of village witches. I have met a lot of young people who have never been to their villages, even though the city they live is less than 4 hours drive to the place. If you ask them, why haven't you been to your village? Our parents didn't take us and we don't know anybody there. What a life. The truth is that, I am angry at religious people. The so called men of Satan hiding under God, plus their legion of gullible followers. Some of them, especially pastors and alfas helped reinforced this evil notion to paint anything village in bad light and alot of gullible people have become victims. My neighbor hasn't been to her village since birth, she is now married with kids. Will she or her children ever know their village? Your guess is as good as mine. It is important to note here that, since you left village, many had died in the village. GOD killed them, not you in the city. If anyone die in the city, people remember, village winch killed them. How can we be so thoughtless? If you hustle and accomplish your mission, God made it so, but if you hustle and things didn't work out, na village winch cause am. Ladies and gentlemen, we must change. This is time for change. Change begin with you. LET'S stop this blackmail against our villages. Because you want to run away from your responsibility, doesn't mean you should tag your village people with all sorts of bad names. Biko, keep your money, don't help anyone back home, but please, stop lying against your village. The wonderful people in your village are not winch, they are created in the image of God. Because you didn't succeed doesn't mean it's their fault. The few evil in villages are not more than those in the cities. There are evil people everywhere and no matter where you go, they can be with you. if you go to some villages today, nobody is living their anymore. Some families do not even have one person at home. Cracked and empty buildings everywhere. They all ran to the city in fear of village winch. Now that you are all in the city, who is that village winch still holding your destiny? The same people you are running away from, are also running away from you. Both of you are your own witches. Change

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This week is Nairaland's official witch week

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