Witchcraft Accusation in Northern Ghana

By Leo Igwe


The atmosphere may appear calm and serene, and the people friendly
and hospitable. Life in the regional capital, Tamale may not be much of
the hustle and bustle one finds at the state capital, Accra or in other
capital cities across the region. There is low traffic and the streets
are hardly overcrowded except when a new chief is being installed, a
political campaign is going on or a top politician is visiting the area.
Still all is not well in the northern region of Ghana because beneath this veneer of
calmness and tranquility lurks a vicious, virulent and
violent trend- witchcraft accusation.
Northern Ghana is a region charged and enchanted with allegations of
witchery, spiritual possession and attack. Witchcraft is at the root of a silent
battle,an ongoing war that has torn apart families and
communities, internally displaced many people, turning them into
refugees in their own land. In the past 3 weeks there have been 3 cases
of accusation within the regional capital, Tamale, alone. I guess there
could be other or more cases. But these are the ones that've come to my
notice. Most cases of accusation take place in the rural parts of the
region with no accessible roads, power or telephone service. In these
remote communities, traditional beliefs and institutions are very
strong. Cases of accusation are not reported in the news. They are
rarely taken to the police stations, where such stations exist. Except
on the highways or border posts, there are virtually no police presence
in the rural communities. Most cases of witchcraft accusation are
resolved locally and traditionally. By that I mean the matter is taken
to the local chief and elders who often refer the issue to a local
shrine for confirmation. In some cases they are pressured to banish the
accused without a confirmation by a local priest. Sometimes accused
persons are forced to flee on their own. Accused persons who are
banished are relocated to other communities. But in most cases they are
taken to one of the seven ‘safe spaces’ otherwise known as ‘witch’ camps in the
region.
This report is based on the three cases of accusation I am currently studying in
Tamale metropolis.
In the first case, a middle aged woman, Mateda, was accused of being
responsible for the death of a 20 year old seamstress. The seamstress
sew some wedding clothes for Mateda’s daughter. But shortly after Mateda paid the
seamstress, she took ill and died.The parents of the seamstress said their daughter
took ill after drinking some porridge she bought
with Mateda's money. They claim she gave their daughter spiritual poison through the
money. So they accused Mateda of being behind the death of
their daughter.
They reported the matter to the chief and asked him to banish the
woman immediately from the community. But the chief declined and instead suggested
that the matter be taken to a local shrine for confirmation.
But the family of the deceased and a local mob refused and insisted that Mateda be
banished right away. In protest they marched to the palace of the paramount chief of
Tamale and reported the matter. But he sent them back to the village chief, who
insisted that the case be taken to a
shrine.
But the angry ‘youths’ started throwing stones at the palace of the
village chief and threatened to burn down the building. They broke a
window of the palace and a ‘sacred’ pot used in keeping some water for
the ancestors to drink when they come visiting at night! The chief
invited the police, but before the police convoy arrived, the mob had
dispersed. The Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit and the
Criminal Investigation Department are currently questioning the
suspects. As I was trying to meet and interview the accusers, I was told of another
case of accusation that could erupt very soon. An elderly
man has been sick for several months and a woman in the neighbourhood is being
suspected of being responsible. I was told that if the man died,
the ‘youths’ in the area might attack this woman or get her banished
from the community. I am trying to nip this accusation in the bud.
I visited the sick person. He was lying on a small bed. I was told he had lost
sensation on the lower part of the body and could not
defecate. He lacks appetite for food and takes only a bit of the local
porridge. The man was holding the Muslim beads in his hands and
murmuring some prayer verses, when I entered the room. I was told he
used to see the woman in his dream. And in the northern region, this
constitutes ‘hard’ evidence for witchcraft. Anyone seen in a dream by a
sick person is believed to be the person who caused the sickness –or who gave the
person the sickness as they say. The family members are using
local herbs to treat the man. Meanwhile, they could not tell me what the man was
suffering from, in other words what they were actually treating with local herbs.
The family members said they took him to two
hospitals in the city where he spent two weeks and 4 days respectively. I have made
contact with hospital authorities and we are trying to
ascertain whether the man was actually treated at these places, what was the
diagnosis so that we can provide him with urgent medical
assistance.
I hope to use this means to deflate the rumour of witch cause or
accusation and hopefully persuade the family members to focus on taking
care of the man based on medical diagnosis and stop suspecting the
innocent woman in the neighbourhood.not the woman in the neighbourhood.
But I must say this is a tough and tricky task.
While I was at the police station gathering information on Mateda's
case, a police officer drew my attention to the case of another woman,
Sheta. She was accused of being responsible for the death of a young
man, Badul who died on June 4, 2013. Badul’s family said they took him
to a local hospital but couldnt confirm if he was treated and what he
was suffering from. They strongly believe that, Sheta was behind the
sickness and death. They said, before he died, Badul was seeing her in
his dreams. And also that one of their family members-a woman- whom they claimed was
occasionally possessed by the spirit, once revealed while
under the influence of the spirit, that Sheta was responsible for the
bother's sickness. But a source in the family of the accused woman told
me the woman whom they claim was often possessed by the spirit was
actually a mentally unstable person, that she had a psychiatric problem
but the family had refused to send her for treatment because they
believe her case is spiritual, that she has spiritual powers.
This woman often makes some witchcraft related pronouncements which
the family takes seriously. And on this occasion while the brother was
sick, she pronounced that Sheta was responsible for the illness. And one morning,
the Badul’s father stormed the house of Sheta with a matchete, in search of her,
apparently to kill her but Sheta was not in the
house.
The matter was reported to a the village chief who asked them to go
to a local shrine for confirmation. But before the day they fixed to go
to the shrine, Badul died. The family of the deceased said they would no longer go
to the shrine. Meanwhile the accused woman has been relocated to another community.
And one of the sons reported the matter to the
police.
The police have invited the accusers for questioning. I met briefly
with some of the accusers in their family compound shortly after the
police invitations were delivered to them.
I noticed a mixture of grief, fear and anger mainly because they had been invited
by the police. In fact they thought I was a police
officer. I spent some time to reassure them that my mission had nothing to do with
the police investigation. They all maintained strongly that
Sheta spiritually killed their son and brother. And to add to their
pain, one of the sons went and reported to the police. As a form of
advice, I told them to try and separate the pain of the loss of their
son and brother from their claim of who killed him and by what means.
That the police would want them to provide evidence that Sheta killed
Badul. At that point tempers started running very high and we were
forced to adjourn our meeting. I went back to the police station to know how the
process of investigation was going.
Cases of witchcraft accusation are handled by The Domestic Violence
and Victims’s Support Unit of the Ghana Police Force. I was told that
several cases are reported every year. According to the Inspector in
charge of the Unit, the cases are seasonal. They get more cases during
the time of the year when there is high rate of infection and disease.
The people who are often accused are women who lack social
support-widows, childless women, poor elderly women who are living alone etc. He
blamed the rampant case of accusation on outmoded traditional
beliefs which, he said, the people have refused to abandon. He said that the police
were working with the chiefs and human rights groups to
educate and reorient the minds of the people. I have not noticed any key program to
reorient the mentality in the region apart from few posters
that are distributed by some NGOs urging local population to treat
alleged witches humanely
However any effort or initiative to tackle this problem must include
getting the people in Northern Ghana to begin to doubt or disbelieve:
-That people can kill others using spiritual means. – That a person
allegedly seen in a dream by a sick person is the cause of the sickness. – That
local priests and soothsayers have the power to confirm through
rituals or divination that somebody is a witch or wizard.
Generally in the region, witchcraft evokes fear and blind faith. This mentality has
to change so that witchcraft evokes curiosity and
critical thinking. We need to get the local population to begin to ask
questions, to seek evidence and challenge witchcraft claims and
accusations.
Definitely, this is not going to be an easy task. It requires -and
will require a lot of efforts, sacrifice and commitment. But as they
say, whatever is difficult is important. The time has come for us to
take up that difficult but crucial task and help bring an end to the
rage of witchcraft accusation in the Northern Region of Ghana.