OPINION: WITCHES, PASTORS, AND THE ABDICATION OF RESPONSIBILITY IN YORUBALAND
OPINION: WITCHES, PASTORS, AND THE ABDICATION OF RESPONSIBILITY IN YORUBALAND By Bamidele Ademola-Olateju For along time, I wanted to write this. Today I found the time and inspiration to touch a very painful truth, deserving serious examination among the Yoruba. Belief in witches is destroying Yorubaland, not in some abstract, philosophical way, but in the most practical and intimate sense. It is hollowing out families, emptying villages, isolating elders, distorting faith, and paralyzing responsibility. It has become a convenient explanation for everything we are unwilling to examine honestly about life, economics, health, and adulthood. At the center of this crisis is a dangerous misreading of human experience. It is not that success is interpreted as spiritual theft or prosperity framed as evidence of evil. The deeper problem is that every life challenge is now interpreted as witchcraft. Illness is no longer a biological event or a medical condition; it is a spiritual attack. ...