By Damilola Isaiah, Akure
The Ondo State chapter of National Human Right Commission has partnered a Non-Governmental Organization called Advocacy for Alleged Witches (AFAW) to fight against witchcraft accusations and ritual killings.
This advocacy was made in Akure, the state capital, at a round table discussion titled “witch hunts and human right violation”
The founder of AFAW, Leo Igwe, noted that the essence of the programme was to put an end to false accusations and mistreatment of victims who were alleged to be witches and majorly to put an end to every form of superstitious beliefs, tagging people as witches and wizard.
According to him, most of these victims are mistreated based on mere allegations without any concrete evidence.
He said “I was not satisfied with the way victims of witchcraft accusations were being treated. You will just hear in the news that somebody has been lynched somewhere and after you don’t hear anything about it again, and you don’t hear that the people who did it were punished or tried. Same thing applies to ritual attacks.
“Occasionally you will see cases in the news of people whose body parts were removed or sometimes of elderly people being lynched, when asked what their offense are, they would say these are witches. I began to read, to research only to find out that most times these people are maltreated based on allegations or fear or suspicion, not really based on concrete evidence that anybody could relate to.
“If we really can use jazz to kill people, do you think that many of us will be alive today? Not necessarily alive, because there’s somebody who wants you dead somewhere, there’s somebody who hates you, there’s somebody who doesn’t want your progress, so I just found out that people based on fears and suspicions and things they cannot actually prove, just waste innocent lives.
Igwe advocated that religious heads should be educated as they are the ones inciting most of these incidents.
“We have to begin to educate and re-educate our pastors because they are the ones inciting many of these people to do this. So we have to get the churches and mosques on board, we also have to get our schools on board because sometimes our schools also have the way of reinforcing these beliefs in the minds of people.
“People are aware of human rights violations, but when it comes to these issues about witches and ritual killing, they don’t take it as seriously, they don’t put it on the same plane with other violations because they somehow see it as justified,” he said.
In his remark, the state coordinator of NHRC, Sunday Olajide, disclosed that the commission had received hundreds of cases of human rights violations.
He however noted that the commission had carried out public awareness to sensitize people on Human rights violations.
“We have received several cases of human rights violations among which are alleged sexual abuse, domestic violence and many others. We have received hundreds of complaints without exaggerating. On a yearly basis, we create awareness to the public about people knowing their rights and knowing where to report to if their rights are being violated,” he said.
