Of Nigerian Christians and Resilient Witches

(By Immanuel James Ibe-Anyanwu) - In Defense of Witches 

Witches have lost again. In prayer houses, Nollywood and, finally, on campus, they always lose to Christian Talibanism. But be sure they will be back. The war on witches never ends, nor do those urchins stay vanquished long on the ground. The University of Nigeria has said the “witch conference” should choose another venue—and that is an unfair phrase, witch conference, as headlines call it. Witches have always had bad reportage, yet they rise. 

Never mind having a Supreme Father, never mind all the assurances of safety in the Bible by that Father, the Nigerian Christian is the most afraid creature on earth. Sleepless in his fear of something he declares has no power, suspicious of every noise within range. “Killing”, casting and binding in a tautology of chants against an agency whose apparent immortality never compels a rethink. 

What if there are no witches? Maybe witches, alongside the devil in that binary of good and evil, were invented to keep spirituality perpetually on course? Or perhaps they exist, but not in the touted sense.

Raised Catholic, Inspired by Pope Francis

Holy Trinity Cathedral, Onitsha, Nigeria; source: Reuters

(Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)--As a child, I loved Mass, its swirl of music and rituals. My family went every Sunday to St. Peter’s, the Catholic chapel at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka. It was full of perfumed people: gold pendants at women’s throats, their headscarves flared out like the wings of giant butterflies; men’s caftans crisply starched; children in frilly socks and uncomfortable clothes. Mass was as much social as spiritual—an occasion to greet and gossip, to see and be seen, and to leave consoled. I loved watching the priests sweep past, all certainty and majestic robes, behind the sober Mass-servers holding candles. The choir sang in Igbo and English, each song a little plot of joy. I loved the smoky smells, the standing and sitting and kneeling, the shiny metal chalice raised high in air charged with magic and ringing bells. The words of the liturgy were poetry.

For the Love of Igbo and Igbo Culture

"Igbo Child in Finland" by Adebanji Alade

I recently recalled a conversation I had with a good friend of mine some years ago. I had expressed a desire to study Igbo (language, literature, culture, anything) at the university level but my friend immediately dismissed it as a "stupid" thought. "What? Are you crazy," he asked me in utter disbelief. He had not understood why people go to the university to study English language, much less French, he said. And there I was expressing an interest in Igbo language. I must be crazy, he concluded.

Thank goodness I'm as sane as they come. My sole insanity is my passion for a culture that I love so much--its language, its history, and its people. I remember an equally great passion and pride with which the likes of Nigeria's literary giant, Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, and celebrity journalist, Bashorun Dele Momodu (who actually studied Yoruba in the university), speak of their Yoruba culture. I remember a similar fervor with which the 17th century English playwright, William Shakespeare wrote about English culture and by so doing preserved it for posterity in his plays. I remember a comparable enthusiasm that prompted a group of French men in 1883 to found Alliance Francaise "to promote French language and culture around the world." I remember all this and I wonder at my good friend's disdain for the study of his own culture.