Witchcraft conference: UNN changes theme, key speaker as programme holds amidst oppositions

Amidst oppositions from the Christian community, the much talked about conference on witchcraft started on Tuesday at the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), Enugu.

The conference, which was said to have attracted over 500 participants, was organised to demystify witchcraft in Africa.

This is coming just as the Christian Council of Nigeria (CCN) joined in antagonising the conference.

The President of CCN, Most Rev (Dr) Benebo Fubara-Manuel, sta­ted the organisation­’s position in Lagos yesterday at a media briefing on her 90­th Anniversary.

“The casualty of this confusion went beyond being asked by UNN management to change the title but also the withdrawal of our keynote speaker, Prof. David Ker.

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“I am delighted that social media hyper on the conference didn’t deter participants and organisers from attending the conference, which is completely academic,” she said.

Prof. Damian Opata, in his paper titled “The wealthy, is no witches: Towards an Epistemology and Ideology of Witchcraft among the Igbo of Nigeria,” explained that the way witchcraft was propagated and believed by some Nigerians had continued to kill the development of knowledge on the issue.

“Some people have killed the initiative for creative indigenous thinking because of mere belief in witchcraft.

“Pastors, prophets, seers in the foreign religions and charismatic priests of variegated persuasions very frequently use perceived attacks by witches and wizards to put fear in the minds and hearts of their various congregations.”

Continuing, he said, “The truth is, for those who believe that witches and wizards exist, it exists for them; and those who believe it does not exist, it doesn’t exist.

“What we are doing today is completely an academic conference; it’s unfortunate that some people tried on social media to give it different interpretations.”

Head of Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the UNN, Prof. Peter-Jazzy Eze, who spoke on what he titled, “Which witch? What Anthropology knows of the Adult Bugbear,” explained that witchcraft did not exist but only existed in the mind of the people who believed in it.

“Science and technology have overtaken the superstitious belief of witchcraft, which has no practical proof.”

Eze said it was time Africa dropped the belief in witchcraft and embraced robust knowledge in science and technology, “the application of which is very practical and verifiable.”

“If Africans can fully embrace science and technology, in the next 50 years, there will be nothing like a superstitious belief in witchcraft, ” he said.