The recent statement by the Chief Judge(CJ) of Bauchi State, Justice Rabi Talatu Umar bemoaning the rising cases of witchcraft in the state has been brought to the attention of the Advocacy for Alleged Witches. The CJ and other members of the Administrative Justice Committee visited prisons to review the cases of awaiting trial inmates. Describing the adjudication of witchcraft cases as a persistent challenge to legal jurisprudence in the state the CJ noted: “If you are not a witch, you cannot identify one”. She then went further to say that witchcraft is “an issue that is difficult to prove unless the accused confesses”(sic). The Advocacy for Alleged Witches is concerned by these pronouncements.
The expression: “It takes a witch to identify a witch” may appear innocuous, but it is not. The statement is a tacit validation of witchcraft, a reinforcement of the belief because the statement implies that witch identification is possible under some form. That witch identification is a capacity that some people have or could have; that ‘witches’, as popularly believed, are identifiable entities. Helen Ukpabio of the Liberty Gospel Church exploits this narrative in her witch-hunting business. She claims to be an ex-witch and to have powers to identify witches and exorcise witchcraft. Was she a witch? No. Does she have powers to identify or exorcise witchcraft? No.
Meanwhile, witches do not exist, and no one has the ability to identify witches and wizards, as popularly believed. Those who claim to have witch-identifying powers are charlatans. The CJ should not make statements that glorify charlatans and charlatanism, statements that validate their bogus claims and practices.
In addition, the CJ also stated that witchcraft accusations were difficult to prove unless the accused person confessed. Confessed? That witches confess is another narrative that some use to confuse the public and validate witchcraft. Do ‘witches’ confess? No, they do not because they cannot and more importantly because they are not. To confess, witches must first exist; they must first be in the position to confess. Accused persons are not capable of witchcraft powers.
As imaginary entities, witches cannot confess as popularly believed. Accused persons are beaten to admit ‘witchcraft’. Are the admissions witch confessions? Their accusers subject them to torture, jungle justice, and trial by ordeal. They make them admit to doing what they did not do; to perpetrating occult harm. Many people mistake the incoherent utterances of people with dementia and other mental health challenges for witch confessions, they are not. Accused people do not confess, they are tortured to confess. Psychopaths and sociopaths torture them to confess. Witch confessions are not proofs of witchcraft. They do not constitute evidence that is admissible in court, beyond reasonable doubt.
Witchcraft is a sensitive subject. The CJ and other state actors should be careful and thoughtful in commenting to avoid confusing the public and validating misconceptions and superstitions. State actors should stick to the law and avoid making utterances that could undermine the letters and spirit of the law. The Nigerian law does not recognize witchcraft. It criminalizes witchcraft accusations. It criminalizes trial by ordeal and jungle justice. To make allusions that imply witches exist or are identifiable undermines the spirit of the law. To claim that confessions prove witchcraft is a misunderstanding or a misinterpretation of the law. To accept a witch confession, one must first acknowledge the confessor is a witch. So, an extraction of witch confession is an exercise in criminality.
So the expression that it takes a witch to identify a witch is a misguided statement. Justice Umar and other state actors should make it clear to the public that witchcraft accusations are against the law and those who accuse or make the accused confess are liable.
Leo Igwe directs the Advocacy for Alleged Witches.
