The horrendous assault on seven-year-old in Bauchi

THE boundary between superstition and criminality is thin. That explains the case in Bauchi State where recently, a housewife, Zuwaira Ibrahim, was alleged to have inflicted severe burns on her seven-year-old sister-in-law over allegations of witchcraft. The victim was inflicted with severe burns around the lower part of her body, particularly her private parts. Media reports said the helpless girl was brutally burnt by her brother’s wife. After the housewife had successfully caught “the witch”, the victim of this criminality, and subjected her to extreme cruelty, life became a nightmare for the girl. Medical personnel handling the case at the emergency ward of the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital (ATBUTH) have been battling to save her life. She is said to be currently writhing in pain. The scary but unfortunate incident occurred in Magama-Gumau in Toro Local Government Area of Bauchi State.

In her warped thinking, Zuwaira Ibrahim investigated and convicted the victim of witchcraft, then embarked on the process of extracting confession which led to the severe burns. According to a resident of the area, Kabiru Mohammed Abdulkadir, “Zuwaira’s child told her that she saw the victim amongst a group of witches and was taken to a man to confirm whether she really belongs to a witchcraft group. The man told them that she was not a witch but Zuwaira disagreed with the confirmation. They returned home and she then used a hot knife removed from the fire to burn her private parts, believing that if she is a real witch she won’t feel pain. However, it was the girl’s loud cries that attracted neighbours and when we got there, we saw the situation and insisted that the case be reported to police immediately.” Pictures and videos of the little girl’s badly burnt body are scary to look at. Medical personnel at ATBUTH indicated that the wounds might have been infected.

This case is yet another one in a long list of crimes committed by persons who are too engrossed in the metaphysical to bother with the precepts of modernity. The Bauchi incident is a vivid case of trial by ordeal, a crime punishable under the law. The incident is bestial and should ideally never be replicated in any human society. What makes the case more ludicrous is that it is almost impossible for Zuwaira Ibrahim to demonstrate that the young girl is a witch. The question is, what method of verification did she use? How empirical was it? Even if she could prove this obviously unverifiable claim, who appointed her as the trial judge in this matter?

When people are at a loss on the particular provinces of the physical and the supernatural, it is this manner of contradiction that comes to play. Zuwaira Ibrahim is apparently unable to delineate the boundaries of the two very consequential provinces. Because she appointed herself unto a task that modernity does not give her, she necessarily has to face the music. No one is allowed to take the law into their own hands and punish people they unilaterally consider evil or wicked. If any society allows this level of absurdity, that society is on the verge of collapse.

We plead that the medics attending to the young girl should do everything in their power to ensure that she recovers from her grievous ordeal. Her future must, as it were, be retrieved from Zuwaira Ibrahim’s flaming fire. Also, the witch-catcher should be made to face the full wrath of the law so as to serve as a deterrent to other lawless persons who might want to appoint themselves as accusers, trial judge and officers of the penitentiary in similar cases. Come to think of it, how is such grievous punishment  inflicted on the young girl the cure for witchcraft? What is witchcraft and how does a witch get verified as one? How does anyone convincingly link witches with cases of evil deeds? These questions may never be clearly answered. The entire scenario points to acute ignorance and gross criminality. The suspect caged herself in the prison walls she built for her mind, and must be held accountable for her crime. Justice must be done and be seen to be done in this case.

We suggest that in communities where there is still a nostalgic connect to stone age thinking like Zuwaira Ibrahim’s, the government, especially local governments, must make serious attempts de-radicalise people’s minds from such crippling thoughts. This will go a long way in purging such people of their warped mindset and free society from the violent grip of people who lend their minds to the devil in committing such heinous crimes. Modern society cannot afford to harbour such persons.

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