Witchcraft: Myth or reality?

Mama Fiina holds fetishes during her installation ceremony as national leader of herbalists and traditional healers last year. Many people question the source of power of traditional healers and whether they are healers or con artists. PHOTO BY ABUBAKER LUBOWA

What you need to know:

Reports emerging early this week revealed allegations of intrigue and infighting among Uganda’s foreign service officials, with witchcraft cited as one of the causes of tensions. It appears the belief has also spread to the informal sector. But is it something that people just talk about or is it real? Esther Oluka finds out.

“Do not enter with your shoes. Leave them outside on the verandah before coming in,” reads a huge sign on a piece of cardboard placed outside Ssenga Geraldine Nazziwa’s house.


I take off my shoes and enter. Inside the house’s huge living room are three red sofa sets placed at different locations. A maroon carpet is placed at the centre. As I gaze around the room, a smiling Nazziwa emerges from a back door and welcomes me before urging me to take a seat.


I nervously sit on the sofa next to the entrance. I guess she notices my discomfort and tells me to calm down as she settles in the opposite sofa.


Nazziwa is a traditional healer and herbalist. Among the things she says she does, is help people who want to succeed in their respective businesses. She uses flyers and posters to advertise her services.

Venturing out
But how exactly does she assist those who want to enhance their businesses? I reached out to Nazziwa to find out for myself. This I did by making a phone call. I used the false name Iculet and went ahead to state that I got her phone number from a flyer I came across in town. I then lied that I was about to open up a restaurant but then needed her assistance to ensure that I always get clients.


“I can help you! Just come to me and we talk about it,’ she stated in a rather joyful tone.
She then gave me directions to her home in Nansana, a suburb of Kampala. It is a modest household in a green gate. And that is how I ended up in her premises.


So, there we were seated in her living room, and despite several attempts to calm me down, I just could not. I kept trembling like a leaf. Anyway, she managed to break the silence by saying, “You have come to the right person.”
Dressed in a black hijab (loosely fitted garment worn by Muslim women), Nazziwa then asked for more details about the restaurant. I made up everything. Moments later, she left the sitting room through the back door. It is then that my mind started to go wild, though one particular thought kept popping up in my head, “what if she discovers that I am lying?”

The antidote
Anyway, my thoughts were suddenly cut short when she returned to the room holding in her right hand, a transparent bottle with a brownish coloured liquid. “Once you open up the restaurant, you pour a few droplets every morning at the entrance. Do it until the liquid gets finished. Customers will then start coming,” she said, adding, “Also, if you decide not to use it, you can always throw it away. It has no harm. It is just meant to help you get more customers.”
Nazziwa then put the bottle in a black polythene bag and handed it to me. As I held the bag hesitantly, she burst into laughter.


“I wonder why you fear. Madam Iculet, you should know that you are not the only person who comes seeking my services.
“I have had doctors, lawyers, managers and even clergymen, including pastors and reverends, coming to me for help. My herbs are only meant to help people succeed in their businesses. They never harm anybody,” she says.

Cost
She charged me Shs30,000 for the services. As I left the premises, two smartly dressed women wait anxiously outside. The corporate-looking women wore sunglasses making it obvious that they did not want to be identified.
Once I was a few metres away from Nazziwa’s premises, I threw the bottle away in a nearby bush before proceeding. Something seemed not to add up though.


When Nazziwa mentioned that even the clergy seek her services, I kept wondering why? Church and the supernatural world do not mix. But then, her revelation that various people seek her services to boost their businesses, retain their jobs, and earn promotions as well as scare business rivals reinforced stories I had heard of people using witchcraft in their respective workplaces.

I experienced witchcraft
For instance, Bovian Kitayiga, the co-owner of Casablanca Bar in Bweyogerere, Wakiso District says that he once found a woman who also owns a bar in the same vicinity dumping a polythene bag of human faeces mixed with ash right in front of his bar.


On another occasion, he found strange herbs covered in a barkcloth at the ventilators of their bar.
“I was very disturbed and worried. Eventually, I called a traditional healer who removed the substances on those two occasions. He then revealed that one of our competitors was trying to scare us so that we would leave the business,” he says.
Well, this did not deter Kitayiga as he continues to operate his bar business to date.

Uganda’s ranking on witchcraft
A report titled ‘Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa’, released in 2010 shows that Uganda ranks 15th in Africa and 20th worldwide in the ‘most religious’ tables. But also the report goes ahead to note that Uganda takes second spot in East Africa and 11th in Africa in the worship of evil spirits, sacrifices to ancestors, and paying homage to traditional religious healers. Almost one in four Ugandans believe in the protective power of juju such as charms or amulets. It further notes that Ugandans switch religions more than any other people in Africa. At least five per cent Ugandans have at one time changed religions.

Ethics Minister and Police speak out

The Minister of Ethics and Integrity, Fr Simon Lokodo, says the practice of witchcraft is condemned by law.
“I am aware of this practice where people are turning to witchcraft in order to make achievements in all spheres of their lives including marriage and business. It is a false and exploitative vice which sometimes tends to mislead people. Can you imagine an instance where a witchdoctor tells a man to kill his wife so that he can become rich? It is insane and thus the reason why we are tackling it with our department of religious affairs by coming up with faith-based organisation policies,” Fr Lokodo says.


On whether police receives withcraft-related cases, Patrick Onyango, the Kampala Metropolitan Police spokesperson, says the police hardly registers such cases because individuals fear to be associated with withcraft.
“People prefer going to churches to pray after claiming that they have been bewitched by someone rather than coming to report the case to police. Onyango says.

Understanding the supernatural world

In the past, witchcraft was commonly acknowledged in many African settings. It was practised for various reasons, including healing and dealing with misfortunes. However, with the coming of the Europeans, the practice was discouraged and Christianity was instead promoted.


“The Whites must have condemned witchcraft because it is supernatural (magical) and many of them failed to understand how it works and the effects it has,” explained Peter Baguma, a professor of Psychology at the Department Of Educational, Organisational and Social Psychology, Makerere University.


However, in spite of the presence of Christianity, Baguma says that witchcraft is still practised to date and that it is real.
“People, however, misuse it for harming others, including causing psychological distress. It is probably the other reason why it is highly condemned in today’s society,” Baguma notes.


Otherwise, he says witchcraft does not have any harm on a person who does not believe in it. Meanwhile, for those who say find strange herbs and concoctions at their designated workplaces, they can simply discard the substances and not worry.
The alternative can be calling up a church leader for help on how to go about the situation.

Personal experience

I found strange concoctions outside the door of my former workplace- Charles Iga, 29

“I used to help my elder brother, John Bukenya, with work at his video hall called BK in Nkonkojeru, Mukono District. This was usually after my classes at St Peter’s Secondary School, Nkokonjeru where I was in Senior Six in 2007. The majority of the clients were men who would come to watch football. So, my role was to walk around collecting money from them. There were days I slept in the hall after work and on other occasions, I would go back home.
One particular morning, I was tasked to go and check on the place before heading to school. On reaching there, I found a strange mixture of grass, blood and other herbs I could not identify just outside the door of the video hall. I was perturbed mostly because my brother had previously told me of such incidents aimed at either harming or frightening a business rival.


Since I do not believe in magic and thought the mixture was harmless, I picked up a broom from the compound and swept the mixture away. However, a few days later, an abnormal swelling occurred on my left leg to the extent that I failed to walk.


An old man in the neighbourhood gave me herbs to apply on the leg which helped to reduce the swelling. But that was not the only weird thing. A few months later; our clients started shunning the hall. Eventually, we started occurring losses and shut down the business.
To this day, I have failed to figure out if my swollen leg and the collapse of the business had anything to do with that mixture.”

PLE candidate passed in spite of “demon attacks”

Allen Nakalanzi, 12,is one of the pupils that sat for 2015 Primary Leaving Examinations. Nakalanzi is a former pupil of Kids Care Nursery Primary school Kirinda IN Masaka District.
She could not believe that she had passed when the results were released. Nakalanzi says she spent the whole of second term at home battling sickness which she attributes to witchcraft.
Nakalanzi, who scored Aggregate 14, was expelled from her former school before joining Kids Care Nursery Primary School last year because she was frequently attacked by “spirits”.
She claims when she was possessed, she would beat up fellow pupils in the dormitory and as such, the school had to let her go.


She, however, is grateful to the teachers at Kids Care Primary School who prayed and comforted her at a time when she had been rejected by her former school.
She attributes her success in PLE to God, hard work and teachers’ advice.
As told to Malik Fahad Jjingo