Wake Up Africa, Nigeria Wake Up, Wake Up Africa Part 2 - First published Sept 2013

Anyone who runs from what he or she is will become what she or he is not.  The case of Africans or Nigerians becoming Chinese, Indians, Europeans or Americans is made more difficult due to differences in the nature of the people of the world we live in today.   Even though one becomes what he or she is not if he or she runs from what they are, Africans who may want to become Europeans, Americans, or Chinese will not be accepted for racial reason and culture. Africans who want to be Europeans or Americans would be like bats that are neither birds nor animals because they are never allowed to assimilate into those societies due to discrimination.  Bats are the only creatures that are neither birds nor animals.

The purpose of this discourse is to allow Nigerians particularly, and Africans generally, to deconstruct and re-encode their minds with their Africanness, in other words, become Africans again.  This is with a view to wiping away the fears of the unknown, imposed on our psyche by the religious dogmas planted on the continent by the colonial masters; especially that perpetuation with propaganda of the ill-motivated dogmas that have continued today unabated by many of the cultural imperialists and neocolonialists at the innumerable centers of their propagation, in Nigeria.  The need to wipe away the fears is important because of the dual nature of everything.  Everything good has its relative negative side effect and everything that is seen as bad has its own relative beneficial effect as well. We cannot be myopic or omni-directional since nature is dual with many dimensions and aspects of it.

The peoples of Nigeria need to appreciate what they have been endowed by nature.  Nigerians are industrious, talented and are great potential intellectuals, if only they can seriously look inward in emulation instead of habitually adapting others ways of life and becoming copycats in a manner that betrays the intellectual capacity as Africans.   We have over looked and neglected serious aspects of lives and living while we chase the shadows of others.

Here is another illustration: Israel.  Israel is a small country in north East Africa; there is no name of a place in Africa known as Middle-East in any ancient literature.  Irrespective of the size and population, Israel is a very popular and powerful nation to be reckoned with. What makes the country and its people tick is their knowledge and strict adherence to their culture, belief, and traditions.  For example, Jewish way of life is guided by their belief in Jewish mysticism which is popularly known as Kabbala.  What is mysticism?  Collins’ Dictionary defines Mysticism as the doctrine of the mystics who seek direct communion with God or the study of spiritual experience, and Webster’s New World Dictionary (3^rd college ed.) defines Kababala as Jewish received lore or tradition, and an occult philosophy of certain Jewish Rabbis.  So mysticism or Kabbala is like much of African traditional religions or divination with the different types and kinds of oracles commonly practiced by the Oralists and other native doctors or herbalists.  Jewish Kabbala has symbols, diagrams, and vowel sounds just like some of the African oracles and Oraclists who have certain African traditional symbols, signs and diagrams including incantations and chants with which they carry out their work of divination.  The African traditional religions and practices combined are a method to seek direct contact with God and the Spiritual World.  The ability to contact the invincible-world through self qualifies such a person as a holy or spiritual individual who also is morally upright and conscious.

Take a serious look at Ghana and the progress therein which is why in Nigeria today, some elites without shame send their children to school in Ghana.  Why is Ghana and Ghanaians very progressive, conscious, and proud today?   Is it impossible to think or argue that the progress that Ghana, like Israel is enjoying today is as a result of the self-consciousness and self-value taught to them by the first President of Independent Ghana, the Osagyefo of Ghana, the late Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of blessed memory?   Upon independence, the first domestic action Kwame Nkrumah was said to have taken was the recognition of witches and wizards of Ghana as a potent force for good and for the development of Ghana.  When questioned as to why he was giving legitimacy to witches and wizards in Ghana, his reply according to Ghanaians in Lagos was that there were so much of what the witches and wizards were doing in his village of birth. As a result, informed sources (Ghanaians in Lagos) revealed that it became possible to purchase witchcraft in a tablet form in Ghanaian markets during President Nkrumah’s time.  The issue was a social and current affairs matter that was discussed openly in market places, beer parlors and other social circles in Lagos, Nigeria, during the time. President Nkrumah was right because contestably, such action can only open doors to enable proper use of witches and wizards’, energies for good.  The axiom is there that the devil we know is better than the angel we do not know.

            Nigerians, there are verifiable reasons for Africans to embark on a process to look into ways that the negative destructive uses of witchcraft and wizard energies can be reversed and used for beneficial good and for prosperity on the continent.  Let us revisit the Dr. Mume’s Confession of a Wizard.  According to the confession of the Wizard of Igbinse, “Witchcraft could be used to benefit mankind if wizards were humane. Many of those things we regard as scientific inventions today are nothing but the revealation of the secret things of coven by the ‘white wizards.’”  When asked as to why he charged an American N10, 000 (ten thousand Naira) in order to teach him witchcraft, the Witch said although, that there was a general rule to give out witchcraft free, but he had to charge because the person was White.  The Witch also said that he had tried several times to create a revolution in the Coven in order to amend and repudiate evil practices among the members, but that he was excommunicated.  Excommunicated of course,

probably because he was then seen as one who was trying to assist us the “ordinary” people.  To the witches and wizards, according to the Wizard of Igbinse, we are ordinary people because we do not have the extra-terrestrial knowledge possessed by the witches.  Following this revelation therefore, is it not clear that if accepted, the Witches and Wizards of Nigeria and Africa could be motivated to redirect their focus on beneficial practices with their strange ability?  On the other hand, I think they would because change is the only permanent thing in life, and African witches and wizards are susceptible to change since one of them had attempted to revolutionize their practices already.

 It was rumored during the heights of the race to Space that the idea to explore the Moon began in Ethiopia with Ethiopian wizards.  The story had it that the Russians had gone to study the Ethiopian witches and wizards for six months; that the Russians then left Ethiopia to return home with the ideas gathered from the Ethiopian witches and wizards.  On October 4, 1957 (Wikipedia) the Russians sent Sputnik 1, the artificial satellite to orbit our Earth, first ever in human history, and this was how the Space Race began.  Following this feat, the then US President John F. Kennedy charged the Americans in an address delivered to Congress to land a man on the moon within ten years of the Russian achievement.  The Americans did not disobey their President; they did all that was necessary and sent an American, John Glen who became the first man to land on the Moon in our time.  The truth or fact about some of the innuendos contained in this discourse may never be publicly known because of the secrecy surrounding them.  But one thing is clear; there is no smoke without fire.  Let us seek to see if the witches and wizards of our land can be pacified or motivated to change the focus of their practices for the good of the society.  It is not impossible to alter the Coven learning curriculum by replacing devilish practices with good ideas and profitable venture that benefits the people of the country and humanity.

Another example why Nigerians and Africans should attempt to accommodate the idea being suggested here is this: In Nigeria, there are many of those, including government officials who go to the witches and wizards at night to seek remedy to their personal plights; even many of those who have been declared as “men of God,” pastors, and evangelists have been known to consult with Witch doctors before they return to their pulpits to preach the gospels to their unsuspecting members of their congregations.  Some are known to select some names of their members and take the names to native doctors to find out what problems each of them have.  After such consultations, some of the evangelists would conduct what are called all kinds of names; among such will be “healing session.”  In such healing sessions, the pastors will call out names that are some of the names that the pastors had previously taken to a native doctor for consultation.  Having been told the problems that each of the persons are facing by the native doctor, the pastor confronts each person with the problems confronting them.  If the individuals were actually having such problems, the pastor becomes a Christ-like, a man of God who must be feared and be given whatever he demands.  Is this unfair of the pastor or not?  One cannot blame the pastors who exploit the ignorance of these people, majority of them women.  The blame goes to the system that fails to see an opportunity and exploit a possibility that would have brought succor to the people who do not need to be exploited by anyone.   

What one is doing with this exercise therefore, is to allow Nigerians and Africans to think and sift through the smokescreens. Let the success of the innuendos that seem to hold water which is why they should not be abandoned altogether, motivate Nigerians to experiment with the witches and wizards of our land.  Thoughts are things, and if Nigerians think success, they will with some of the examples cited in this discourse; it is only when one is in doubt or thinks that it cannot be done, that is when it will not be done. 

For example, fire does not recognize its maker if one fumbles with it, and from our mundane exoteric knowledge and experience fire is one of the most dangerous phenomena.  Equally, fire is a Spirit that heals, and man had learned to use fire with great successes in many ways.  It sustains our lives because without fire we would not have been able to cook our food; of course, we eat to live.  If we have ran away from fire because of its destructive tendencies, who knows what would have happened to us if we were to eat raw food all the time?   The same thing is true of water, a Spirit.  Water in the form of flood is as devastating as fire.  But we learn to use it also. We can purify even the flood water and we use it in many ways. We drink it, bath with it and water heals. Man even learns to tame it by making a swimming area out of it and learn to swim with so that we may be able to escape transition just in case we mistakenly fall into a deep water or river.

My advice is that we should not hate or run away from what we know not or a little about.   Conquering the unknown should be our motto at this time because of the ways witches and wizards have tormented millions of their friends and foes, relatives and non-relatives on the continent.  There might be a very few families, if any, who may boast of lack of experience of the witches and wizards in Nigeria and Africa generally.  It is with the spirit of conquering the unknown that the Almighty America has become the leader of the world, and Nigeria was being looked at as the America reincarnate in the mid 1970s by Nigerians in the United States.  This was due to the aggressive nature and force of intelligence they possess, but illusion and mirage in the realm of leaderships appear to be demoralizing which is why there is stagnation in terms of moral consciousness, political stability and economic growth.  It is an honest appeal to the people Nigeria and Africa to urgently find ways to embrace their own, no matter what it is. God is the author of all and could never have been imperfect in His decision to create and have humans who are witches and wizards living among the people. There must be good reasons for creating the witches.  It is man and woman’s turn to find ways to use ever thing in the world to their advantages or betterment.