Mma: At the Heart of Igbo Cosmology and Culture

"To understand more fully the complex set of ideas behind Agu's charge of witchcraft, it is necessary to say something about the connection between and Igbo person's life, his or her productiveness, and the communal 'good.' Mma is arguably the most important, single Igbo cosmological term. It contains a complex bundle of meanings: not only 'good' but wealth, health, and beauty are also implied. The key to following the discussion below is that the reader must keep all of these meanings in mind, since the values expressed by the use of mma are central to Igbo thought, particularly Igbo thought about human worth.
          For the Igbo, personal mma is both a reflection on the mma of the community and a positive statement about, or a continuation through time and space of, that good. "Goodness" is thus an active property in the life of an individual as well as in the life of a group. In practical terms, this means that a productive person is a person who manifests 'goodness' through his/her actions, by working hard and creatively, by having children and by teaching those children proper values, by accumulating wealth and by redistributing that wealth to the community through participation in title taking, town and local credit associations, and the establishment of patron-client relations with the less fortunate.
          One of the most important signs of 'goodness' for the Igbo is children. Children are, on one hand, the visible continuation of the lineage into the future, but they also represent material and spiritual wealth in the present. This is why murder and robbery are so closely linked in Igbo thought. The death of any person implies the loss of his/her productive and reproductive potential for the community at large.

Mathematical Solution For Fear of Witchcraft

(By Joy Isi Bewaji) 

I have a mathematical solution to the trepidation of witchcraft propagated and promoted by religion.

So, the church across the street has a screaming pastor (like most others)…

“They say you will not get married. They say you will not have children. They say you will not buy a car. They don’t know your God.”

Every Sunday and Wednesday, it’s the same proliferation of fear and concern about a spirit world interested in stealing children, husbands and automobiles.

OK.

Let’s ignore the hundreds of birth that occur every day. Let’s also disregard over-population, and all the fucks that should not be bringing forth any form of being.

So you want a husband and children and a car; and your religion takes a large chunk of the time praying that you get them; disturbing my peace…

How about I draw up a solution so y’all can move on with your lives? Check this out:

African witchcraft doesn’t last for more than 10 years (Sometimes even less. But you are not a patient sufferer). So let’s imagine for 10 years you cannot get a husband, have kids and drive a car. But you can do other things while the devil and the old woman in the village hold down your womb.

The Stupidity of Nigerian Archetypal Christian

(By Temidayo Ahanmisi) - Dear Future, 

My mother is 83. She prefers to still go out to run her SME trade, even though we'd rather she stayed home. 

Sometimes she'd walk a distance at least to stretch her legs and keep her heart invigorated and healthy.

My mother is strong, physically and mentally. She is much loved by her 11 children; by her neighbours and extended family. She enjoys immense respect too in our neighbourhood.

We would rather she be cooped up at home or only go out within the tight confines of a chauffeured car because she has committed the grievous crime of growing old as a human naturally should in the most abominably deplorable society on earth today.

African Churches and Their Hunt for Witches

(By Leo Igwe)--It cannot be overemphasized that churches in Africa are instrumental to the witch craze in the region. Programs and activities of faith organizations continue to fuel witchcraft suspicions with sometimes horrific consequences on alleged witches. There is an urgent need to counteract this dark and destructive process. We must call witch-finding churches to order or rue it!

The main issue remains: How do we put this vicious campaign to an end? How do we restrain witch-imputing churches that exist and operate across Africa? Getting African churches to join the campaign against witchcraft accusation is important because if this horrific trend must stop, the process will start in the churches, from the churches, with the churches, and by the churches. Christian groups must lead the way. They must champion the cause of making witch-hunting history in the region.

Unfortunately, this is not yet the case. Pentecostal churches are still in the business of hunting witches. They invoke and exorcise witches and wizards. Witchcraft evangelism is still the ‘religious order’ of the day in the region.

Time To Abandon Beliefs in Witchcraft

Ijabla

(By Raymond Ijabla) – It's Time To Abandon The Belief In Witchcraft Because Witches Don't Exist

Since declaring, I'm a humanist and someone without religion, many respondents have asked if I believe that witches, wizards, demons and evil spirits exist. Some asked, "how do you decide what is right or wrong if you don't believe in God?" I shall address the first part of these important questions in this article and the rest in future articles.

Funke is a six-year-old girl who lives with her uncle and his wife. She lost her parents in a car crash when she was only a few days old. Uncle Segun and his wife, Ngozi, have been married for four years now but have no children of their own. Ngozi has suffered recurrent miscarriages.

They have been to different churches and attended various crusades and have done everything they have been told to do - from fasting and prayers, anointing themselves with olive oil, tithing, to paying all the special offerings specifically targeted at couples looking for the fruit of the womb - to no avail. They even carry a white handkerchief that was specially anointed by the General overseer of their church wherever they go. At the end of a week-long session of prayers and fasting atop a hill known simply as Oke, the word of the Lord came to their pastor - Funke is a witch sent by the queen of the coast to destroy their lives. They thought, "Aha, that makes sense.

No Africa Magic For My Child

(Chi-Chi Nnani)--NO child of mine is allowed to watch Africa Magic.

Until they clear up their CRAP programming. No. Not happening.

Some people don't realise those things they watch, aren't real. Apart from that, they can't happen. I said it the other day, that Nigerians engage with organised religion out of FEAR. That is the basis of a lot of their activities, including those ridiculous "fall down and die" prayers. I don't know how any sane person can put themselves in such a situation.

Nigeria's Witch Airways and Other Sad Tales

Let me warn you, reader, in advance: If you have a squeamish constitution, please do not read this piece. Just stop here and flee, for the story I’m about to tell is terribly ugly and disturbing. It is bound to leave you horribly unsettled, disturbed. In my career as a columnist I have written few essays that galled and upset me more. It is a piece I wish I didn’t have to write, but one that I feel compelled to write. A grandmother in my novel Arrows of Rain warns her son, “A story that must be told never forgives silence.”

I’m writing this piece in that spirit; it is a story, I believe, that must be told. It must be told despite its ugliness, or, in fact, because of it. Flee now, dear reader, if you can’t handle it.

Thoughts on Juju, Jazz, and Related Issues

As I might or might not have mentioned before, growing up as a kid I was more afraid of Nigerian movies or Nollywood movies as they are now called than I was of your typical Hollywood horror flick. I was more afraid of the witches, wizards, evil spirits, demons and witchdoctors (aka babalawo aka dibia) that were common in that period of nollywood history than I was of Freddy Kruger, Jason, Candyman or Chuckie (ok maybe Chuckie freaked young me a little bit). Why is this you ask? To my younger mind the threat of witchcraft, someone using native medicine to make you go mad, kidnapping you and using your body parts for rituals was realer (more real?) than Freddy Kruger who I knew was not real and seemed to only attack oyibo children (oyibo translates as white but refers to ‘western’ people). I was safe in Nigeria from Freddy Kruger I thought but was not safe from the Nigerian occult. Why did I think that? Growing up and this is still true today, the Nigerian society has stories of occult happenings floating around, stories perpetuated by people that never witnessed the original event or the real reason behind the event.

I remember stories about children who collected sweets from their nursery school teacher and the sweets turned into human fingers. How did they know this? Well apparently one of the kids did not consume his sweets when he was given and left it in his pocket. When his mother took his trousers to go wash them she felt something in his pocket and lo and behold it was a human finger.

Children Tortured, Killed as Witches in Nigeria

Just after midnight, the pastor seized a woman's forehead with his large hand and she fell screaming and writhing on the ground. "Fire! Fire! Fire!" shouted the worshippers, raising their hands in the air.

Pastor Celestine Effiong's congregants are being delivered from what they firmly believe to be witchcraft. And in the darkness of the city and the villages beyond, similar shouts and screams echo from makeshift church to makeshift church.

"I have been delivered from witches and wizards today!" exclaimed one exhausted-looking woman.

Pastors in southeast Nigeria claim illness and poverty are caused by witches who bring terrible misfortune to those around them. And those denounced as witches must be cleansed through deliverance or cast out.

As daylight breaks, and we travel out to the rural villages it becomes apparent the most vulnerable to this stigmatization of witchcraft are children.

The Harm Nollywood and Religion Cause Nigeria

With all the Nollywood hype on juju, money rituals, power rituals, witches and wizards, and prayers that cure all problems, one would have thought that Nigeria would be topping the medals’ list at the on-going Olympics in London. The Americas, Asia, Europe and other parts of the world would have stayed by the sidelines kowtowing with trembling and trepidation as Nigeria pockets medal after medal.

But regrettably, it seems the potency of the juju from these named climes dwarfs ours. Or, perhaps the citizens of these continents pray better and harder than we do. Or, put more resignedly: Maybe God loves these nations more than Nigeria.

Less than three weeks ago – precisely on July 25 – the media reported the arrest of two men from Nasarawa State, near the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, with the fresh head of a seven-year-old boy. The victim was identified as Samu Danjuma, the child of their neighbours. According to the confession they made to the police before the media when they were paraded by officials of the State Security Services, they had lured the boy with a loaf of bread, drowned him, and beheaded him for sale to a man who had promised them N250,000.00.

On July 27, two men were arrested in Lagos with the decomposing, mutilated body of their 39-year-old brother, Akinbuyi Ajayi, in their family house in Festac Town. Some body parts such as the head, hands, private part and a part of the two legs had been removed from the corpse. The decomposing corpse was discovered after the two were caught by the police allegedly selling some human parts. That led to a search of their house, a duplex which their parents had left behind for them.

Film and the Christianization of Nigeria

Let’s start this column with a quiz question. Which film center produced more commercial movies in 2005: Hollywood (USA), Bollywood (India), or Nollywood (Nigeria)? If you guessed Hollywood, guess again. America produced only 611 commercial films in 2005. Ok, Bollywood then. Nope. Although India outshone the USA, producing 964 films, they produced less than half the output of Nollywood, which released over 2000 films. (Hollywood comes out on top when the criteria is gross sales income.)

Admittedly, the Nigerian film industry operates on different principles from those of America and India. Most films are low-budget, often costing less than $30,000 to make. They are shot in ten days or less by hand-held video cameras, and distributed directly to DVD without ever seeing the light (or is it the “dark”?) of a movie theater. Most films made in Nigeria sell for about $3 and rent for 50 cents.

The 3Ws of Nollywood: Women, Wealth, and Witchcraft

Critics often upbraid Nollywood for what they term its "thematic obsession" with the occult world, obscenity, prostitution, and money worship. But according to Brian Larkin, "[i]t is the mixing of melodrama with horror and magic and the linkage of financial with sexual and spiritual corruption that makes the melodrama of Nigeria... video film distinctively African."

The critics contend that this "obsession" casts Nigeria and Africa in a negative light. What they fail to acknowledge, however, is that Nollywood frames and represents its society, drawing inspiration from its milieu. No doubt, it does exaggerate its representations for filmic effects, but it does not invent its narratives.

It derives its content mainly from the socio-cultural realities of its environment, constantly beaming its cinematic light on the ugly and uncomfortable realities within society and, instead of allowing us play the ostrich, forces us into an open discursive arena to keep talking about such issues like ritual killings and the burning, torturing, and even killing of innocent children under the guise of forcing witchcraft confessions out of them.