A branch of the Foursquare Gospel Church has announced a four-day prophetic power crusade. The theme of the crusade is: Breaking the Yoke of Witchcraft. The prophetic service will take place in Nsukka in Southern Nigeria from April 23 to 26 2020.
Authorities in Nigeria should be concerned about this religious service because it has the potential of spreading misinformation and panic in the community. This event is happening at a time of so much fear over the nature and spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
The number of infections in Nigeria has continued to rise everyday and people are desperately looking for ways and means of containing the spread of the virus.
At this time, many people are vulnerable, gullible and susceptible to taking any measures including witch hunting to stay safe, healthy and alive. Existing research has shown that witchcraft allegations happen more during a time of social stress and tension.
And Covid-19 has occasioned so much tension in the communities. It has provided a breeding ground for witchcraft imputation and witch hunting. The organisers of this church service want to exploit the pervasive fear and tension across the country.
They would get the people to buy into a spiritual and supernatural causation of the disease, and reinforce occult fears and anxieties. This church service is a mechanism to mine the uncertainty and anxiety in the society. It has the potential of inciting hatred and violence, and getting the church members to use the narratives of witchcraft to make sense of the spread of the pandemic.
Authorities in Nigeria should take appropriate measures to call the organizers of this prophetic power crusade to order.
Leo Igwe (born July 26, 1970) is a Nigerian human rights advocate and humanist. Igwe is a former Western and Southern African representative of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, and has specialized in campaigning against and documenting the impacts of child witchcraft accusations. He holds a Ph.D from the Bayreuth International School of African Studies at the University of Bayreuth in Germany, having earned a graduate degree in Philosophy from the University of Calabar in Nigeria. Igwe’s human rights advocacy has brought him into conflict with high-profile witchcraft believers, such as Liberty Foundation Gospel Ministries, because of his criticism of what he describes as their role in the violence and child abandonment that sometimes result from accusations of witchcraft. His human rights fieldwork has led to his arrest on several occasions in Nigeria. Igwe has held leadership roles in the Nigerian Humanist Movement, Atheist Alliance International, and the Center For Inquiry—Nigeria. In 2012, Igwe was appointed as a Research Fellow of the James Randi Educational Foundation, where he continues working toward the goal of responding to what he sees as the deleterious effects of superstition, advancing skepticism throughout Africa and around the world. In 2014, Igwe was chosen as a laureate of the International Academy of Humanism and in 2017 received the Distinguished Services to Humanism Award from the International Humanist and Ethical Union.
Igwe was raised in southeastern Nigeria, and describes his household as being strictly Catholic in the midst of a “highly superstitious community,” according to an interview in the Gold Coast Bulletin.[1] At age twelve, Igwe entered the seminary, beginning to study for the Catholic priesthood, but later was confused by conflicting beliefs between Christian theology and the beliefs in witches and wizards that are “entrenched in Nigerian society.”[1] After a period of research and internal conflict due to doubts about the “odd blend of tribalism and fundamentalist Christianity he believes is stunting African development,” a 24-year-old Igwe resigned from the seminary and relocated to Ibadan, Nigeria
