Two Sister Kill Their Own Mother (Page 3)

In as much as we commiserate with the woman killed out of ignorance, we should be leery not to align the misfortune with the deplorable socio-economic situations in the country.  As the saying goes from a biblical verse, “those who are well have not need of the physician”.  We could stand or even sit here to portion blame for the misfortune of our people as one writer quoted: “Nigerians are the architects of their own misfortune”, but knowing what we all know today that Nigerian Government has failed the people for over 50 yrs.  Can anyone sincerely assert Nigerians are the architects of their misfortune? Please refrain from such callous statements. The condemnation we ought to concern ourselves with is somebody/people who had the gut to kill his or her own mother.  Personally, I think that is bad and sad!

I had a very sad experience with witchcraft at Efurun, Warri in 1998. I was raised at the Ikpan Police Barrack, Efurun in Warri. Every night, this one little black mouse would climb my bed to bite my toes. When I woke up, I would have sore on three toes, and this repeated on the same toes for a whole week. On two occasions, I chased the mouse to a particular hut where there lived one old woman. According to sources, the woman had lived there without any family member before the city decided to build a police barrack next to her hut. One night, I nearly killed the mouse with machete but missed by half inch as it ran into her safe heaven - the old woman’s hut.  Only God knows how I felt about being attacked by an old woman I saw and greeted once a while. The attack stopped thanks to another Edo woman, a police officer’s wife,  who gave me the antidote of witch hunting: special type of cocoa yam, ukasi leaf (Gnetum Africanum), yellow palm nut and a pin tied and hung on the entrances of my bedroom. Such activities have negative impact on the people affected. That said, no one suppose to take laws in his/her hands. Then again, one cannot substantiate the claim of witch hunting to the authorities; the whole thing then becomes the case of inundation of he-said she-said scenario.