Aiye—Witches, Wizards, Evil Forces—and the Failure of Governments in Nigeria -By Abdulkadir Salaudeen

Hmmm! Wonder shall never end. Ahmad Isah, the founder of the Brekete family show, slapped a woman in a viral video for setting her child, whom she believed to be witch, on fire. May be she is not aware that governments are now urged to seek the help of witches to solve myriad of problems. The Ordinary President’s emotional outburst is understandable; he shouldn’t have slapped her, though. You see when someone does something that is unimaginably and terribly irritating, you get mad at them.

Just like Ahmad Isah, I was about to slap a colleague of mine, who enslaved himself to a student, sometime ago. This dude does the student’s biddings as if he is being remote controlled like a robot. I wondered how a teacher will be so foolish to allow himself to be used, misused, and abused by a student as if he has been bewitched like the Nigerian Government. I did not say the Government is bewitched, Femi Adesina did. He is the Special Adviser, Media and Publicity to President Buhari who blames the challenges faced by Buhari’s Government on Aiye. Hear him: “when Aiye is on your case, as it was against Man City, and it is against Buhari government, you need God, and God alone…If Aiye gets on your matter, you need God and God alone.”

And this is not the first time that the hamstringing role of Aiye on government is underlined. Before Adesina, Reuben Abati who held similar position under former President Jonathan also professed that the Aso Rock demon is real. According to him, it controls Buhari and other leaders. Meaning that it (demon) would not allow the government to make any headway—any progress. I know many will be inquisitive; what on earth could be the meaning of ‘Aiye’? Your English dictionary will definitely disappoint you because it is not an English word. I will come to this later.

Many of us think that the problems of Nigeria are corruption, mismanagement, lack of accountability and transparency, injustice, leaders’ cluelessness and incompetence, nepotism, and what not. All these seem to be symptoms of our problems. Should I say our thinking had been befogged all this while, to think wisely and realize, that our real problem is Aiye? If the diagnosis of Nigeria’s problem as Aiye is right, there is a need to tender apology to corruption—an unreserved apology. For, we have, for long, victimized it; while in the real sense, it is not the victim. Corruption, please, forgive us.

But if the diagnosis that Aiye is the problem with/of Nigeria’s government is found to be wrong and you (corruption) happen to be the real problem as we initially thought, we would need to withdraw our apology—frankly speaking.
Let’s turn to Aiye. What is Aiye? It is a Yoruba world that literally translates as world. But in its idiomatic usage, it means a combination of witches and wizards, evil forces and demons. I hope that is clear. When Aiye gets on your matter as said above, or when they follow you, as the Yoruba would say, you can never be successful—this is according to their belief. Thus, you need God, and God alone.
I am ‘happy’ that this perspective is gaining traction and would probably be added to the growing literature on the challenges bedevilling the Nigerian state. All solutions to these challenges seem to be creating newer but more disastrous problems. Last week, I acknowledged the truth of her Excellency’s claim that Aso Villa is not save. Even then, I was actually viewing safety from a binary perspective. I had in mind the shooting incidence of June last year inside Aso Villa and the recent ‘UGM’’s invasion of the Chief of Staff’s residence—on a street next to the seat of power.

With this new revelation, her Excellency, Mrs. Aisha Buhari, needs to be interviewed or rather express her view on this Aiye’s and evil spirit’s perspective to the general insecurity. Is it that the President’s family and aides are not secured in Aso Villa as a result of demons? But I am still confused! It is not that I am downplaying the ‘role(s)’ of Aiye in Nigerian Government and politics; what puzzles me is the inability of the Christian and Muslim clerics (who frequent the Aso Villa) to chase away these demons.

Actually, I am not always comfortable when I see clerics hobnobbing with those in authority. But at the same time, this may not be blanketly condemned; for it is possible that they are going there to advice them. In addition, there going there may not be unconnected with the Aiye and demons who have taken the Villa as residence. Kudos to those clerics; though it seems the demons are more powerful!

Note that I did not say Aiye do not exist. Nor have I disputed that they have negative impacts on government and governance. I am just musing. In the course of my musing, I recollected that after the 2015 elections, White Witches Association of Nigeria (WHIWTAN) declared their support for President Buhari’s Administration. I am not aware of the stance of the black ones.
Do you think I am joking? In fact, it was in an emergency meeting of the association held in Ofosu, Edo state. Their resolution partly reads: “Following our worries over Nigeria, the general assembly of witches decided to hold this meeting. In attendance were witches from all the 36 states of Nigeria including Katsina…the unanimous decision was taken that we should support Buhari to fight corruption…we also took other decisions on some national issues affecting the country.” Though I don’t know if they are still supporting him.

Just last year, a ‘political scientist’ urged President Buhari to urgently enlist the spiritual support of African witches and wizards to combat the endemic challenges of insecurity and corruption which is navigating the ship of the Nigerian state towards a huge rock. This political scientist broadened the scope of participation of witches and wizards to accommodate, perhaps, the seasoned and more experienced ones from Africa (generally). The don went out of his way to quote verses of the Qur’an in support of his position.

From the above, how can we fault anyone who wonders if Nigeria practices democracy or ‘DEMONcracy’? Don’t get confused. The former is the one we all know—the system of government stipulated in the Nigerian Constitution. The latter—DEMONcracy—is the new strain. It is a system of government that is guided by democratic fetishism. It is a fetish democracy. Or in other words, fetishization of democracy where demons, witches and wizards hold sway in the general administration. The influence of DEMONcracy on many of our politicians explains why they go to where they go—to retain themselves in power or seek victory during elections.

I hope I can discuss what Islam says about witches and wizards. But I am constrained by a self imposed words limit. However, next week, in Sha Allah, I will take a look at that. Do witches really exist? Without keeping readers in a limbo unnecessarily till next week, the answer is simply yes—that is from Islamic perspective. Are they powerful than God or like God? Subhaanallah! Apparently no. Do they have power over people? Are they to be feared or to be worshipped? Do they hypnotise those in power? Do the Muslims consider them relevant by seeking their advice or guidance in their general affairs?

We shall answer these questions next week. Meanwhile, we supplicate to Allah to help liberate this government from the suzerainty of Aiye (if they are truly on its case). O Allah, guide this government, grant us peace, security, and ease our affairs.

Abdulkadir Salaudeen
salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com