Children, accused of being witches by either their parents, care givers, ‘pastors and prophets,’ are still being tortured and killed in cold blood, particularly in Akwa Ibom and Cross River States where the Child Rights Act had been passed into Law. JOSEPH KINGSTON chronicles this untold story in this article.
Few years ago, one Bishop Sunday William, had alleged that Akwa Ibom state has about 2.3 million witches and wizards, majority of them, children. He was alleged to also claimed to have helped parents kill about 110 “child-witches” at N400,000 per ‘child witch’.
The Bishop was subsequently arrested at the instance of the state government and paraded at the State Police Headquarters, Ikot Akpan Abia, Uyo.
He told reporters, during interview, that he used superior spiritual powers to destroy the spirit of witchcraft in possessed children, adding that since he started his work, he has so far destroyed the spirit in about 110 people.
The then Governor, Godswill Akpabio (now Senate President), was said to have expressed annoyance that a ‘Bishop’ would declare that 2.3 million witches existed in a state of less than 6 million people; leaving about 3.7 million of the population ‘witch-free.’
Akpabio had dismissed the 2.3 million witches claim as hallucination of the highest order, positing that some of the alleged child witches may have confessed to being witches and wizards when they were tortured by their parents and church leaders.
“If you put a nail on my head and ask me to agree that I am a wizard, I would do that to save myself from torture. That is how these children are tortured to accept that they are witches and their parents would gladly throw them out of the house,” he had said.
Some time ago, six years old Effiong Lawson was beheaded, allegedly by his stepfather, Felix Lawson, 43, in Onna local government area of Akwa Ibom state. Effiong was accused of being a wizard whose assignment in the witchcraft world was said to include impoverishing the parents.
Effiong, who was sent out of his father’s home, had not eaten for three days. That fateful night, he sneaked into the backyard to beckon on his sister to help him with some crumbs of the food in the house but unknown to him, his father was at home.
Felix, on realizing it was his ‘witch son’ in the yard, left the food he was eating, pursued the hungry and weak lad with a cutlass and in one fell swoop, cut off his head.
Effiong’s headless body was later found in the pool of stagnant water behind one of the school bocks adjacent Lawson’s homes. The head was found in the nearby farm. It was indeed like a horror movie, yet it happened in Akwa Ibom State with the Child Rights Law in force.
Another victim of parental brutality to a ‘child-witch’ was that of a 12-year-old Mercy Frank, who was bath with acid by her biological mother for being a ‘witch.’
Before the acid bath, Mercy was a pupil in Atabong Primary School in Okobo local government area of Akwa Ibom state. The acid bath had completely damaged her mouth, breast and other parts of her body.
At the Children Ward of the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital (UUTH), Mercy, who was brought to the hospital by security agents who picked her from the bush where she was dumped by her mother, was begging for food to keep body and soul together.
Her words: “I am from Atabong village. I am the second child in the family of four children. My mother poured acid solution on my body, that is why my mouth and my body are like these.
“One of our neighbours told my mother that I was a witch but I told her that I was not a witch. She took me to Apostolic Church in Atabong, Okobo and the pastor told her that I was a witch. When the pastor asked me if I was a witch, I told him I was not a witch.
“The pastor prayed and told my mother that I was a witch, then we went back home after the prayer. When we got home that night, my mother canned me seriously. Other neighbours begged her to let me be but she refused.
“Later at midnight, my mother took me to a bush and poured acid solution on me and dropped me by the roadside and left.”
Another report says a seven year old boy was rescued by detectives in Eket after his 28 year old step mother arranged with a Port Harcourt-based child trafficker to buy the lad. This was because a pastor had accused the boy of being a witch.
The boy was living with his biological mother until the father requested to take full responsibility of him. The step mother then secretly took the boy to a pastor for spiritual screening to know if the boy was a witch.
As expected, the boy was accused of being possessed, and few days later, he was made to disappear from the house. The stepmother, who operates a local Hotel called Prince Udoette Hotel in Ikot Idung Offiong, had already sold him out, but for a timely intervention of police, the boy could have been in deep, deep trouble.
Another bad tale of torture of alleged child witches is that of two 8-year-old children from Okobo local government area, Akwa Ibom State, identified as Mary Odiong and Ekong Asua, who lived on the streets for one full month, after their relatives tortured them and sent them out of their homes for allegedly being witches.
Odiong told Journalists that she was blamed for the death of her uncle who died in Okopedi village, of an ailment many suspected was AIDS, and that her people accused her of sending the AIDS virus to the man. This is ridiculous indeed.
“The people in my family called me and started asking me whether I was a witch and why I killed my uncle. I told them that I did not know anything about what they were talking about. They started beating me. They hit me with cutlasses. They cut my buttocks with knives.
After the beating became too much, I lost consciousness. Later, I woke up to find myself in a bush. I have been living on the streets since last month without food and shelter,” she said.
In Esua’s case, his parents died from what has been described as a “strange ailment,” and afterwards, his uncles accused him of being a wizard, and blamed him for his parents’ death.
“My uncles told me that they went somewhere to find out why my parents died and that they were told that I killed both of them through witchcraft. They tied my hands and started beating me up with native sugarcane and asked me to confess.
“When I insisted that I knew nothing about the death of my parents, they took me to a bush, where I met Odiong. Both of us have been living on the streets since then,” he said.
This tale is not, however, limited to Akwa Ibom state. Few months ago, 13 years old Patience Ita Bassey was almost slaughtered by her master, one Mr Asuquo Bassey alias Asukara, who resided at 21c Inyang Edem Street, off Mt. Zion Road, Calabar South for allegedly being the cause of the purported dwindling fortunes of the man.
Our reporter who visited the scene of the incident was reliably informed that the accused inflicted several matchet cuts on the girl, and was at the verge of killing her when her cry attracted neighbors who promptly rushed in to deliver the victim from imminent death.
The neighbors said they called in the police, after which the girl was rushed to General Hospital, Calabar where she received treatment. A neighbour, one Chief Orok Orok Duke, President of a Calabar-based NGO – Less Privileged Right Protection Organization told this writer that his prompt intervention saved the life of the girl, and described such violence as unfortunate.
Many more incidents of use of brute force on alleged child witches are rampant. Most of these troubles are traceable to spiritual leaders, who, instead of being solution are themselves causes of broken homes and families.
These ‘men of God’ seem to have employed the vulnerability and ignorance of their poor members to exploit them, using children as scapegoats. In all cases, it is children of poor members that are tagged ‘witches’.
It could be recalled that the then Governor Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State had on December 5, 2008 signed the Child Rights Bill into Law, while Cross River followed suit on May 26, 2009 when the Child Right Act was formally passed into law by the House of Assembly.
But many years after those events, alleged child-witches are still murdered with impunity right in the presence of law enforcement officers and government accredited clan/ village heads
State governments have remained helplessly passive and are yet to formally prosecute anybody who, by whatever means, inflict severe bodily harm on these children. Inactions from authorities which should protect the vulnerable children have caused the Child Rights Law to lost steam and purpose.
This writer could not lay hands on any document on the number of those prosecuted or punished as a result of violation of the Child Rights law despite the fact that these violations are in the public space.
Majority of Nigerians who spoke to our reporter on this matter believe that governments at all levels have capacity to stop this anomaly.
Genuine efforts, they posited, complemented by sincere love for the so-called possessed child witch, and coupled with genuine deliverance prayers from sound men of God could set contaminated children free if indeed it is proven that they were contaminated spiritually, and definitely not through torture and murdering them.
And let it be stressed that until government begins to punish offenders, accused ‘child-witches’ would continue to pass through the valley of shadow of death from parents and care givers.
