REUBEN ABATI, THE WITCHES, AND THE WITCH-HUNTERS.

Akingbade Thomas

The recent opinion article circulated in the news media, by Reuben Abati, with the title: rituals, blood, and death – the spiritual side of aso rock. At first, judging by the title, i had assumed another satirical writing from him. But after reading the full gist, i realized that Mr. Abati’s writing this time was far from political or social satire. What then occurred to me was to confirm if it is indeed the very Mr. Abati i knew (via his writings and his former political appointment), was the real author of the piece.
Having confirmed that in the positive, i then decided to check the area of knowledge from which he had his phD. The result i got didn’t show that he had his phD in theology or his thesis related to something like-“the concept of demonology, and its interaction with governance in Nigeria”.

What I can hereafter make of Mr. Abati’s latest conclusions on the subject matter of demonology, its all-encompassing and ubiquitous negative effects on governance, are as follows; Mr. Abati is not the pioneer of the this defeatist thinking, that attempt to excuse bad governance on the activities of witches. Professor Nebo, the former minister of power, once ascribed the activities of the pipe line vandals to the handiwork of demons.

I certainly don’t have problem with religious folks coming up with demon theories. What gives me serious concern, is the thinking of some persons reputed with advanced level of rational knowledge (e.g. phD) coming to conclusions that rubbished the title prefixed to their names. A particular ground for this concern is the fact that these persons had their education when Nigeria’s education system was acclaimed to be excellent.

How come an educational system that was excellent failed to afford these contemporary demon theorists, the characteristics of rational and empirical knowledge; which has intelligently situated the place of spiritism, as belonging in the realm of illusion and delusion. Now that Mr. Abati had done an elaborate work on the pervading activities of witches, as it impact on governance negatively. I shall now use him as a case study, in situating the depth of critical thinking capacity of the political class in Nigeria.

In this Abati’s piece, he went from the position of seeing the talk about the reality of the power of witches, as senseless, prior to his political appointment, and his relocation villa. To becoming convinced of the reality of the power of demons, when he started living in aso rock villa. According to him, he became convinced when his pastor who was visited him, told him of the huge and pervading presence of witches in the villa. And to prove this claim, the pastor predicted an outbreak of fire accident, which occurred some days later. Further evidences that convinced Mr. Abati included; death, diseases like cancer, erectile dysfunction, material lost and other painful experiences.

If Mr. Abati finds the above listed natural phenomena, which are common to all human experience, as sufficient evidences for him to believe in the existence of witches, then, I know the likely issue with the thought processes that lead to that conviction. Of a particular interest to me is the incident of erectile dysfunction mentioned as one of the areas of interest to the witches. Could it be that the witches (since they are women) will have biological and pleasurable use of the rods in their covens? Since they can’t appear in Love Machine stores to make purchase. But seriously, how will men who foolishly and generously afforded themselves the attack of risk factors for hypertension and diabetes, through the unbridled indulgence in the obscene luxuries that abound in seat of power, not suffer erectile dysfunction. Since their vigilant watch for drop of filthy lucre will not allow them to attend to their health.

Mr. Abati is now convinced that the evil spell cast on Nigeria by the witches, are responsible for all the inherently defective policies of government, inconsistencies in implementing good policies, the inept and gaffes of the president, and the ridiculous behaviors of most of the politically exposed persons.
Done with all these claims, Mr. Abati immediately went on to conflict himself on these claims of evil spell. By comparing the normal human behavior in the US white house, and the abnormal behavior in the villa. If the villa and by extension Nigeria, is littered by millions of “powerful men of God”, who claimed superior power over witches , yet the witches appeared to be in charge of Nigeria. What possible explanation does Mr. Abati have for that? The white house, and by extension also , the USA, is not known to be a place where prayers or “powerful men of God” are considered to be seriously relevant when it comes to deliberation on good governance. How come witches are not having field day in white house?

Just like everything about religious beliefs, it’s simply a compilation of nauseating and contradictory ideas, which are inimical to the growth and development of humanity. Mr. Abati’s thoughts simply took inspiration from this very source.
Am sure it was based on the suggestion of the “powerful men of God” (witch-hunters), that Mr. Abati would have aso rock villa converted to spiritual museum in the event that he became the president in future. He intends to build another villa that will be impenetrable to witches, because an “all conquering almighty” will be in charge. If the present witch-hunters, who claimed to be the earthly representative of the “all-conquering almighty” are helpless before the witches of today, how is Mr. Abati sure the witch-hunters would not have been hunted down by the witches then.

This pattern of thinking, evidently shown by Mr. Abati, is typical of the illusion and vicious cycling of projects that have no remote relevance to the growth and development of Nigerians. In this instance, how does building another villa relate to entrenchment of good governance?

The danger in this type of thinking process that ascribe real life challenges, to the activities of witches, by political leaders in Nigeria, is the frustration it cast on the rational efforts of other Nigerians who are committed to the project of good governance, which is inspired and built on critical and intelligent thinking. Also, if this mindset is not changed, the hope of providing real solutions to our real problems might remain a mirage, for as long as these folks remain in political leadership of Nigeria. The fact that more than 90% of Nigerians are religious in their approach to issues, particularly makes the gist of evil spell by witches a deadly psychological virus, which must be contained by thoughts devoid of illusionary and delusionary tendencies.

Akingbade Thomas is a physiotherapist and Humanist.
empril41@gmail.com

Interesting piece!

This is an article from a sane mind not the gibberish type
of myth being perpetuated by Abati, the failure who blames
witches for his shortcomings.

Lalasticlala