Opinion
OBBO: An African president wages the strangest of wars


By CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO Posted Wednesday, March 25 2009 at 19:33

It is the witchcraft season in Africa. Over the weekend, there was a
report on CNN about some frightening chaps in Burundi who had been
arrested for the murder of their fellow citizens with albinism.

They, like others in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania,
were supplying witchdoctors and other customers who believe that the
limbs, skin, or intimate body parts of albinos can be used to bring
one great wealth, to cure infertility, and to ward off evil spirits.

Dozens of albinos have been killed in the region for ritual purposes
over the last two years.

In Kenya, in recent months there have been stories of old men with
grey hair being hunted down because they were believed to be evil
witchdoctors.

Old women with red eyes have been lynched in the ignorant belief that
they are responsible for failed rains, poor harvests, and all manner
of misfortunes.

However, East Africa’s witchdoctors and witch-hunters must now stand
aside and let the grandmaster of the trade take over. When it comes to
matters supernatural, Gambia’s President Yahya Jammeh is in a class of
his own.

An amazing new report by Amnesty International alleges that Jammeh is
leading a state witch-hunt in which as many as 1,000 people have been
kidnapped from their villages and taken to secret detention centres
where they have been stripped, beaten and poisoned.

Witnesses told Amnesty International that Jammeh’s personal guard,
along with armed police and intelligence officers, are roaming
villages and small towns rounding up ‘‘suspects’’.

But Jammeh has a rare bizarre streak, so this is no ordinary witch-hunt.

His government has imported its own witchdoctors from Guinea, who
accompany Gambian security in their operations. Also, the detention
centre where the suspected witches are taken is, appropriately, in
Jammeh’s hometown.

Jammeh is not cracking down on witchdoctors because he is a scientific
president who knows it is quackery. Far from it. He is into
witchcraft, and believes it was responsible for the death of his
favourite aunt! Not trusting Gambian witchdoctors, he brought in
expatriates from Guinea to deal with the threat.

None of this should come as a surprise because, as the British
newspaper, The Independent, reminds those of us who might have
forgotten, two years ago Jammeh caused a stir when he claimed that
some medicines he was concocting in the kitchen could cure Aids and
asthma.

Jammeh invited the media to witness him administering the ‘‘miracle’’ cure.

When a UN official scoffed at his claims, he was bundled out of the
country. Jammeh’s Aids medicine is unique because, he claimed, it only
works if taken on Thursdays! Many people believe Jammeh has gone round
the bend, and is no longer of sound mind.

But one cannot help suspect that he is cracking down on witchdoctors
because he wants to monopolise the business. And we thought we had
problems with our leaders.

In Britain, meanwhile, a debate that has been taking place in Africa
for a long time has been ignited by the case of a teacher who has
filed an equal pay claim with the Employment Tribunal.

According to The Guardian, Jackie Gilchrist, who teaches children with
special needs (autism, to be specific) is claiming that she is being
discriminated against because she is paid less than a grave-digger and
road-builder.

The same council that pays Gilchrist a salary of about Sh98,000 a
month, pays local grave-diggers Sh138,000, and road workers more than
Sh187,000 a month.

This has opened up a deeply philosophical debate; who is more
important to society, a teacher or grave-digger?

The Guardian caught up with Mr Bruce Reid, a grave-digger, at a pub
where he had gone to discuss the pay dispute with Gilchrist.

Reid is worried that if Gilchrist’s case for a salary raise succeeds,
people like him might have to take a pay cut to accommodate it. He
argued: ‘‘Everybody has a level of danger in their job. She has all
the children that can flare up. We have cave-ins in the grave.’’

Reid believes his job deserves higher, because ‘‘nobody wants to be a
grave-digger. It is quite a stressful job’’. He also argued that a
grave-digger cannot go home and talk to his wife about his job.

The paper also found road worker Adrian Livingstone, who defended his
Sh187,000 pay: ‘‘We are out in rains and blizzards. We are not sitting
in a warm building [like Gilchrist]’’, he said.
So who is right? Hard to say. Let them call in President Jammeh to sort it out.

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