​Very interesting, Happy reading.
*LET’S TALK WITCHES*
I hail from an ***** community where the talk of witches is common place.
One of my abiding memories of visiting home those early years was my cousins pointing out ‘witches’ to me and advising me to avoid them in my own interest.
Each of these witches was female, old, living in a thatched mud hut, and seemingly miserable and wretched. All witches were said to be extremely malevolent.
Unfortunately for my well-meaning cousins, and fortunately for me, those ‘witches’ who happened to be aunts were particularly fond of me and I happily discountenanced all the tales of witchcraft and enjoyed their company as much as I could.
Now, those were the days.
Anyway, I held onto the image of witches painted in my mind as a child. That image subsisted until President Buhari developed interest in witch-hunting.
You know, sometimes the chasm between what you believe and reality can be very wide indeed. I am now happy that I ignored my cousins because those aunts of mine were no witches at all.
President Buhari has shown us that witches are mostly male, urbane, driving exotic cars, residing in palatial mansions, and maintaining permanent suites in 5-star hotels.
Witches are business men, also called whiz kids (it doesn’t matter that they are in their 60s) whose only claim to stardom is that they collected billions of Naira in loans from our banks and proceeded to live large without any plan whatsoever of ever repaying the loans.
Why else are they whiz kids? Anyway, a whiz kid must necessarily be a witch. Don’t you agree?
I now know that witches are state governors who pocket a large portion of their state’s resources and owe civil servants for months on end without any thought for how those workers will provide for their families, or take their sick children to the hospital.
Witches are senators who draw more pay than their colleagues anywhere on earth, but still want to craft a life pension for their leaders, with immunity from prosecution for their criminal activities as a bonus.
Witches are army generals who shared money meant for the purchase of armament among themselves, while our soldiers, our children, were being slaughtered by insurgents because they had no weapons to fight.
These generals bought exotic cars, built mansions, and drank the costliest champagne knowing that they were drinking the blood of young men and women under their charge that was being spilled on the battle field.
Witches are army generals who court-martialled soldiers who dared protest their sorry state and had them sentenced to death.
Each time anyone comes on Facebook to accuse the president of a witch-hunt when one of these witches is called to account for his misdeeds, I know exactly what they are talking about.
Witches are men who rather than defend themselves of whatever witchery they are being accused of will claim they are being witch-hunted because they do not belong to the ruling party.
I have also learned that all witches are not equal. Little witches are those men and women struggling to make ends meet, but who will use their scarce resources to come on Facebook and defend the big witches making their lives hell.
Okay, I know that witches big and small are expected to have one another’s back, but … Interestingly, the female folks have more representation in the sphere of small witchery than in the world of big witches.
The snag here is that the big witches do not care a bit about the little witches. Such is life.
If I have nothing to thank President Buhari for, I must be grateful that he has straightened me out on who is a witch. There are no witches in my village.
All the witches are in our various state capitals and the Federal Capital Territory, wearing designer clothes and sipping designer spirits. Malevolence is their name.
*ARE YOU A WITCH?*