Rely on hard work, not witchcraft or shrines

The subject of shrines is back in the news again. According to a report in this newspaper yesterday, about 200 shrines in Kayunga District face demolition. There are suspicions that these shrines are engaged in the criminal act of human sacrifice.

The intent to pull down shrines in Kayunga follows the recovery of bodies in one of the shrines last week.

Then on Tuesday morning, angry residents of Kisoga village in Nazigo Sub-county, destroyed a house and gardens of a key suspect in the murder of six people, whose bodies were retrieved from his shrine on Monday (see Daily Monitor of Wednesday).

The question of shrines, witch doctors, and traditional healers remains a serious challenge, not only to their victims, but also to the nation as a whole. In particular, the roles each of these play remain a controversial matter.

While their existence is associated with backwardness, poverty and illiteracy, among others, facts on the ground show that even the so-called enlightened, rich and highly placed and exposed persons in society are known to visit shrines. While the poor visit witch doctors in search of fortunes, the rich go to shrines to seek powers to bolster or to improve their status.

In 2016, for instance, the Speaker of Parliament and Woman Member of Parliament for Kamuli District, Ms Rebecca Kadaga, reportedly visited ancestral shrines on Nendha Hill in Nakigo Sub-County, Iganga District to thank her ancestral spirits for helping her to be re-elected as the Speaker and a Member of Parliament.

Earlier in 2004, the then vice president, Prof Gilbert Bukenya, went to pray at a shrine in Masaka, where he was reportedly subjected to a rigorous regime of rituals.

Interestingly, in both cases, many Christians, disapproved of the shrine visits. The Catholics, for instance, called for Prof Bukenya’s resignation, while the Anglican Archbishop Stanley Ntagali questioned the morality of some politicians, advising them to instead be thanking God.

But is demolition of shrines the answer to witchcraft or human sacrifice? The Rev Fr Morris Kigoye doesn’t think so. He says “Witchcraft is within a person’s heart and the shrines are just building.”

Nevertheless, it is critical that people start working hard in order to avoid thinking that witch doctors will help them to better their lives. Besides, sacrificing a human being is not an income generating activity. Rather than improve your life, the criminality will instead ruin your future. It is only hard work that will enable to people increase their fortunes, not witchcraft.