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Nigeria: Issues In Military Welfarism

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Nigeria: Issues In Military Welfarism

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Emmanuel Onwubiko

I’m about writing on what was done or not done in the immediate past dispensation within the military to mainstream the implementation of constructive modalities of promoting welfare schemes for members of the Nigerian Army.

This is because of some misgivings that have emerged regarding what was done or not done about the welfare of combatants given the peculiar war situation that Nigeria has unfortunately found itself and also because of the overwhelming appetites to try to muddy up acclaimed milestones that public officials with conscience achieved conscientiously.

But first, let me share some stories from a nice book I have read over five times since I bought it. These stories say a whole lot intrinsically about or regarding my subject matter and also bring out the twists and turns that do occur to someone in public office who although is doing a lot to improve the wellbeing of his subordinates but who will go on to face criticism from even his own institution.

These are how the author narrated the series of interwoven stories: The author says that: “When Tony Jacklin won the British Open in 1969, he was inundated by endorsement opportunities, particularly from England, which had been waiting a long time for its own golf champion. We felt, however, that Jacklin’s win was no accident, and so we agreed only to short-term contracts, one year or less. A year later, Jacklin won the US Open and his endorsement value tripled.

“Conversely, when Ben Crenshaw first turned pro, I felt he had one of the most promotable images I had seen in pro sports. He was being touted as the ‘next Nicklaus’, and while that is a nice reputation to have, it was next to impossible to live up to. I felt it was important to promote Crenshaw’s image before it was associated with any success he might or might not have on the golf course.

“Unfortunately, Ben waited too long, and by the time we began representing him the fact that he was something less than immortal hurt his marketability.

“When Muhammad Ali was at the peak of his fame, the climate of the country simply was not as favourable for a black athlete as it was for a white one. It is now, and even back then you could see it was going to change. Had Ali worked on developing a positive, wholesome, ‘non-boxer’ image, he could have made as much out of the ring as he did in it. But he never weighed the present in terms of the future, and his revenues from endorsements have never amounted to much.” ( From What They Don’t Teach You At Harvard Business School By Mark H.Mc Cormack).

These little less than half a dozen stories of individual heroism attained within certain epochs and continents, encapsulate what I think has become the existential factors trailing the retirement from service of the immediate past service chiefs with specific and unique reference to the immediate past Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant General Yusuf Tukur Buratai (rtd). Even his (General Buratai) adversaries agree that the immediate past army chief of staff has built formidable legacies of a boosted welfarism for the men/women and officers of the Nigerian Army, yet his marvelous achievements and milestones in the area of promoting the wellbeing and welfare of soldiers have come under frenetic attacks by some soldiers.  I resist the temptation to call them unprintable names.

The below dramatic news reportage was the format adopted by the online medium that reported the story of the allegation by the solders.

The usually fearless medium reported that ‘aggrieved’ soldiers of the Nigerian Army are calling for a probe of how their uniform and boots allowances and scarce skills allowances approved by President Muhammadu Buhari since November 2017 have not been paid by the army authorities, then under the former Chief of the Army Staff, Lt Gen Tukur Buratai (retd.).

The soldiers stated that their allowances for the past four years have been either unpaid or underpaid by the army authorities without any explanation, urging the president to order the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission as well as the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission to probe what happened to the monies.

SaharaReporters obtained a copy of the Manual of Financial Administration for the Armed Forces of Nigeria 2017, which is the official document spelling out the allowances of the military personnel, which was approved by President Buhari on November 9, 2017.

“The MAFA contains details of allowances and other financial entitlements of personnel in service and on retirement. It also provides guidelines for financial planning that ensures effective and efficient financial management. Consequently, the Armed Forces Council approved the implementation of the MAFA with effect from Novermber 9, 2017,” Buhari had stated and signed.

Checks by SaharaReporters into the MAFA indicated that the Scarce Skill Allowance is N100,000 for all military personnel “irrespective of rank.”

However, this writer in my capacity as the intellectual head of a civil rights body carried out an investigation and these are the ingredients of my findings: THE FACTS: The issues raised are straightforward except to the mischief makers:

1.  It was the former COAS, H.E Lt Gen Buratai that introduced boots and uniform allowance before it was incorporated in the 2017 MAFA.

2. Scarce skill allowance, and some other allowances were not implemented 100% due to funding constraints.

3.  Though the MAFA was approved in Nov 2017 there was no financial appropriation to back it until 2020 when partial funding was granted. Furthermore, only 60% of budgeted requirements by the Armed Forces for the implementation of the 2017 MAFA was appropriated in year 2020 and without arrears.

4. An implementation strategy was adopted by all the Services and DHQ to ensure equity, fairness and transparency.

5. It should be noted however, that the 2017 MAFA which is the most robust welfare to the Armed Forces since inception was introduced under the able leadership of the immediate past CDS and the service chiefs, a credit to the President and Commander In- Chief, Muhammadu Buhari.

6. It should also be noted that the Manual of Financial Administration is essentially a guide of military non-regular allowances subject to appropriation.

7. There has been many MAFAs before the 2017 MAFA, however, no MAFA has succeeded at the level of implementation as the 2017 MAFA which has archived almost 80%.

8. The National Assembly must also be commended for their support in the appropriation of funds despite the current tight economic environment.

9. Curiously, though all the issues cut across the services why single out Gen Buratai?

10. There are several welfare packages introduced by H.E Lt Gen Buratai (Rtd) as former COAS which are not covered by the MAFA. This is aside from massive infrastructural development across the various army formations in the country as well as many community development projects and services. I got these details from a very credible insider.

These facts are now in the public domain. But I must say that the military general whose legacies are being challenged, is a person who through out his career as the army chief manifested a passion for stating the issues as they are.

Also, generally speaking, there is no gainsaying the fact that within the period that the past service chiefs in charge of the Nigerian Army held sway, his leadership deepened the welfarist outlook of the military Institution for the operatives and officers.

His successor has also made it known that Lieutenant General Buratai indeed erected a formidable welfarist character to the benefit of all and sundry in the Nigerian Army. So the records are pragmatic enough for all to see including the naysayers.

On January 28th 2021, the immediate past Chief of Army Staff, retired Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai, says he left the Nigerian Army better than he met.

Buratai stated this in his valedictory speech during the Pulling Out Parade by the Nigerian Army.

He said that the army on his watch had achieved tremendous feat in the fight against insurgency and other security threats in the country.

He added that he ensured adequate training of personnel and enhancement of war fare capabilities of the army as well as prioritisation of personnel welfare.

“Today is a day of appreciation and not a stocktaking, but let me put on record that I left Nigerian Army better than I met it.

“The Nigerian Army under my leadership was able to achieve a great feat in the fight against insurgency in the country.

“We have been experiencing pockets of threats here and there, but I can confidently say that no part of Nigeria is ceded to any terrorist group or criminals.

“The counter-insurgency operation is a warfare new to Nigerian Army but over time, we have continued to devise means of tackling the ever-evolving dynamic nature of the threats in the country.

“The Nigerian Army has remained resolute in the discharge of its roles as enshrined in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“I urge you all to continue to rise to the occasion,” he said.

Buratai said that while it was always necessary to say goodbye at a point in life, he said it was not easy to find the right word to say goodbye to the courageous and dedicated team that worked with him.

He said that Nigerian Army also made giant strides in infrastructure development across the country.

Buratai commended the officers and soldiers of the Nigerian Army for their loyalty which he said assisted him to achieve so much in office.

The former COAS also thanked President Muhammadu Buhari for the opportunity to serve the country as well as providing an enabling environment for him to succeed.

He also commended the effort of the government of Borno in the war against insurgency, assuring that the war would soon be a thing of the past.

He urged politicians to always leave military out of politics, adding that the country needed politicians who are statesmen to support the military in addressing the prevailing security challenges.

According to him, there is no gain saying that there cannot be development without security and lack of development breeds insecurity.

He solicited support for the new Chief of Army Staff, Maj.-Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru, to be able to deliver on his mandate.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Buratai was officially pulled out of service in a parade held in his honour at Mogadishu Cantonment, Asokoro, Abuja.

This writer believes that the ongoing effort to set up a trust fund for the military, as is being conceptualised by the National Assembly inevitably draws inspiration from the landmark efforts made by the immediate past service chiefs and especially the erstwhile Chief of Army staff- General Buratai with a unique focus on boosting staff welfare.

Having said the aforementioned,  it will be recalled that the speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, said that the military needs more funding because Nigeria is at war.

Gbajabiamila, who stated this at  a public hearing on a bill seeking to establish a special trust fund for the Armed Forces, said insecurity in the country has made extra funding for the military necessary.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the hearing, the speaker said tackling insecurity in the country requires various remedies, adding that there is the need for the military to be better equipped through the bill.

He said: “Even with these extensive and wider examination of our security challenges; we cannot exclude the need for and benefit of a well-equipped and better-trained military in the fight against all forms of insecurity.

“It is a historic fact that countries during war times do not fund their military through regular appropriations alone. From the USA, to the United Kingdom and all Western powers; their military are funded through extra-budgetary means during periods of war.

“Nigeria is at war against insurgency, terrorism, kidnapping and all manner of insecurity; hence the need to uplift the resources available to our armed services to enable them to procure the best tools to help win this war. So, what we seek to do in this bill is not new or unique to us as a nation.

“The solution to our security challenges requires asymmetric actions across many policy areas. This is what we have tried to do as the representatives of the people. The concept of a trust fund already exists for the Nigerian Police.

“It only makes sense to also bolster our military capability as well through this unique vehicle. In this bill, the board of the trust fund is full of eminent Nigerians from all walks of life; this should give confidence to all of the depth of knowledge and experience that will be available to manage this fund. The National Assembly will equally play its part in over- sighting this work of this Trust Fund.”

By way of conclusion,  I wish to counsel the current crop of service chiefs to focus a lot more on sustaining the efforts that are targeted at improving the welfare of their team members and most importantly the combatants who are making giant strides to defend the territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Onwubiko is the head of the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) and was a federal commissioner at the National Human Rights commission of Nigeria.  He blogs@www.theingerianinsidernews.com,  www.huriwanigeria.com, www.huriwa@blogspot.com. 
 

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Opinion

Kemi Badenoch’s Bad Knocks  On Nigeria 

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By  Hope O’Rukevbe Eghagha

One of the interesting proverbs I picked up in our General African Studies (GAS 201) course with the late Professor Jabez Olowo Ojoade in the University of Jos in 1979 was ‘it is a bastard child that points at his homestead with his left hand! The Akan people of Ghana put it this way: a bastard child points to his father’s house with his left hand’. The Yoruba say that ‘a person who points to their homestead with the left hand is not a good person’, while the Luhya of Kenya say that ‘when pointing to your village, use your right hand’. It is in the Swahili language that a sort of generalised use of the left hand is concretised when it says ‘the left hand is for personal hygiene, not for pointing!

Bastard child! Homestead! Pointing with the left hand! These three constituents and functional parts of the proverb tickled my teenage imagination to no end. What is it about the left had that it should not be used to refer to one’s family? Why is this metaphor common across the continent? Indeed, there must be something about the family, about the homestead, about one’s origins that deserves respect no matter the circumstances.

By the way, some Nigerians in the diaspora also point to Nigeria with their left hand. ‘That country’, is often used to describe the place where some spent eighteen or thirty of their lives as they tried to find their feet. So, in a sense, Kemi is simply doing what some full-blooded Nigerians do in reaction to the anomie which currently rules the land. Kemi stands out because of her delicate and prominent position in the world. We all took offence when Bully Donald Trump referred to ours as ‘shithole countries! At that level, who said what becomes very important, that is, the message is given prominence because of the stature and calibre of the messenger.

            The proverb, according to Wikipedia, is ‘often used to convey that someone who is not respectful or grateful to their roots or heritage will eventually be rejected or ostracised by their community! The left hand, we are told, is for personal hygiene. We don’t use it to give or receive gifts; we don’t use it to serve drinks or for traditionally important functions.

             In the African context, a bastard child is not one who was born out of wedlock or whose father is not known to the family. Bastard child represents a person who is disconnected from their family. Pointing to the family house with the left hand is indicative of disrespect.

            These thoughts flooded my mind when I read recently elected leader of the Conservative Party in the UK, Kemi Badenoch, gave some hard and bad knocks to Nigeria, the Nigeria Police, and governance in her Nigeria, her ancestral home. To be sure, nobody who has encountered some men of the Nigeria Police in action can fault Kemi. Her chemistry of being brutally frank is what has taken Kemi to the heights in Conservative Party politics. Whether she can indeed lead the Party to victory in an election is a different kettle of fish. As the potential leader of the British government, all cards will count when push gets to shove. Which is why Kemi should remember that no well-trained child points to the family house with the left hand.

            Nigeria is in process. It is a building site. And we started this project of disparate and different cultures fused together when the British pounced on our ancestors to create Nigeria. We look back to the years when a British monarch, King Henry VIII (1491 to 1547), who ate two of his six wives for breakfast and dinner. Wives Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard were executed by beheading. Jane Seymour died under mysterious circumstances. Perhaps if Diana had emerged in the 15th century as wife to a British monarch, the reigning king would have sent her to the guillotine instead of the tunnel in Paris! Some British monarchs actively participated, supported, and profited from the transatlantic slave trade. British monarchs oversaw the colonisation of indigenous lands in Africa, North America, and Australia sometimes through genocide! No where in Africa, our dear left-handed and grandly insolent Kemi, would a Prime Minister allow his wife to remain in an adulterous relationship for decades as Harold Macmillan did with wife Lady Dorothy Macmillan did with the bisexual Bob Boothby in the 20th Britain!

            We may need to remind Kemi that racism still dominated policing in Britain as it does in much of the Western world. Yet, we have not painted the entire police system as being racist. Indeed, Kemi, without officialdom around her can still be profiled by a police officer if she were found driving alone in some areas of London! Her skin colour, is not typically British, I dare say. Yet, we have not said that Britain is racist. The ‘how dark’ racist discussions which precipitated Harry and Meghan fleeing the British monarchy is still very fresh and raw in our consciousness; yet, Nigeria’s Vice President has not called the British monarchy a racist institution.

            Time will fail me to discuss the Damilola Taylor case in year 2000 when the Metropolitan Police handling of Taylor’s murder was seen as slow and inadequate due to racial bias. By the way, Damilola was both British and Yoruba like our illustrious and petulant Kemi who believes in giving hard knocks! What about the Stephen Lawrence 1993 murder case which the Metropolitan Police badly handled owing to racial bias? In 1999, Roger Sylvester, a Black man, died in police custody and an inquest showed that the police used excessive force. In 2009, newspaper vendor Ian Tom died after being struck by a police officer during the G20 protests in London. The 1999 Macpherson Report, which investigated the Stephen Lawrence case, concluded that ‘the Metropolitan Police as institutionally racist! As late as 2017, the Lammy Review which was led David Lammy (MP) concluded that “black and minority ethnic individuals were more likely to be stopped and searched, arrested, and imprisoned than their white counterparts! Need I say more?

So, our dear daughter and bright star Kemi in the British firmament, we shall not point to you with our left hand, because in spite of you, you are our daughter. We can only say that the Nigeria Police is in good company of the Empire of the Police system which was created in 1820 by your progenitors from the other side! Colonial vestiges are not easy to shake off!

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Afe Babalola And Dele Farotimi: On Justice, A Just Society And The Nigerian State

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Prof. Tunji Olaopa

By Tunji Olaopa

The feud between elder statesman, Chief Afe Babalola and civil rights activist, Mr. Dele Farotimi, is perhaps the most significant discourse that postcolonial Nigerian state has thrown up for the moment, one in a class of those grand defining disputations that surely will gather dust which will take some time to abate. And it is one case that is fraught with all sorts of legal, jurisprudential, moral and political traps and complexities that speak to more than the trivial interventions—leveraged around the David and Goliath motif—that are attending the matter. Those who have been able to go beyond the surface of the case will agree that it goes to the very foundation and founding of the Nigerian society, and the fundamental objective of crafting a good and just society for Nigerians. That the issue revolves around the dispensation of justice immediately alerts us to the deep insinuation about the idea of social justice itself, and how the conception of fairness could be written into the very fabric of the Nigerian society. And yet, the complexity of the case is what makes it a case that is too critical for a public servant like me to dabble in.

(Un)fortunately, my intellectual maturation, my political science education and my professional endeavor in institutional reform advocacy have prepared me to intervene in this critical matter. I have always been involved with Nigeria, and with reflective thoughts about how to reconstitute her greatness. Three learning encounters with three world-historic icons configured my passion for wanting to see that Nigeria becomes a state we all can be proud of. The first came from my reading of Plato’s Republic. There is a reason that the entire treatise commenced with the question, what is justice? Justice was a fundamental issue in the decline of the ancient Athenian democracy that allowed Socrates to be judicially murdered. The second learning derived from Wole Soyinka’s dense prison memoir, The Man Died. And like most who have read it, Soyinka was troubled by the idea of justice: “For me, justice is the first condition of humanity.” By the time I would be coming to Thomas More’s Utopia, I was already apprised of the connections between my political science education, my professional endeavor as a public servant, and the key elements of institutional reform as a cogent framework for transforming Nigeria.

From Plato to Soyinka, we have a trajectory of political reflection that takes justice seriously as the basis for organizing a just society. This is part of the intellectual frameworks for my undergraduate and graduate studies at the Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan. In one of those explosive seminar classes that played some fundamental role in my intellectual maturation in the graduate school, I had proposed an argument through a seminar paper titled: “Is a revolution an option to fix Nigeria?” The topic was meant to titillate the collective yearning for revolution that would serve as the ultimate mechanism for social change that would flush off all traces of corruption and degeneration in postcolonial Nigeria. Revolutions seem to possess some allure for the masses because they constitute a framework of justice that the constitutional justice mechanism might not be able to handle.

However, as Wole Soyinka, Thomas More, Martin Luther and even Galileo Galilei would realize, the need for radicalism is balanced by the force of establishment orthodoxy. The Nigerian predicament has, as a fundamental foundation, a lot to do with the connection between governance failure and injustice in terms of the persistent and protracted class strife between the haves and the have-nots, between the rich and the poor, indeed, in the final analysis between the government and the governed. And in the case between Afe Babalola and Dele Farotimi, the issues boil down to the administration of justice and the entire edifices and institutions of social justice and the rule of law in Nigeria. And so, in outlining the key issues involved in the matter, we must be careful enough to read between the lines and the noises of analysts who are eager to queue behind their favored protagonists.

First things first. Let us remove the surface debris. Indeed, and in this case, the debris points us in the direction to look for the rot within the matter. First, there is the matter of civil defamation and its legal ramifications. And second, there is the issue of the legal and moral protocols involved in dealing with the pursuit of redress by someone who knows and understands the law. Barrister Farotimi has a legal right to seek redress in court. Chief Babalola has a legal right to defend his reputation in court. In raising the specter of legal prosecution against defamation, I see Chief Babalola as being at the forefront of gatekeeping the legal establishment in terms of what is and is not permissible or possible under the law and its conservative tenets. If you are hurt or an injustice has been done to your person, then the best place to seek redress is not the court of public opinion but the constitutional legal establishment.

Unfortunately for him, Barrister Farotimi’s book, Nigeria and Its Criminal Justice System, impugns the entire legal and judicial establishment up to its apex institution, the Nigerian Supreme Court. However, does radicalism preclude moral decency? A book could be written and allegations made without the complement of atrocious language. Or maybe the rot in the judicial system, and the need for a revolution preclude any niceties, especially with those who are allegedly at the forefront of perpetuating and protecting the rot. But then, how to prove what we all consider to be the norm in terms of legal prosecution of judicial corruption remains a hanging question.

No matter how we look at what we are calling the surface debris, we are redirected deeper and deeper into what lies beneath the surface. The ultimate question is that between Chief Afe Babalola and Barrister Dele Farotimi, what we are asked to contend with is the state of the Nigerian judiciary and the corrupt impediment of social justice, especially for an average Nigerian. What Barrister Dele Farotimi said about the Nigerian judicial system is not new. We are all familiar with the rot within the system. Indeed, this is not the first time an alarm would be raised about what we are all familiar with. Indeed, as far back as 1999, The News magazine carried a most unsalutary headline, “Crooks on the Bench: An Expose on the Rot in the Judiciary.” The magazine headlined the names of 47 judges indicted for judicial corruption. What is new is that Dele Farotimi dared to go so far as to mention specific names, and to confront the big players in the legal establishment. And he did this in a most scurrilous manner targeted at getting maximum traction and attention. It is as if Mr Farotimi, through the public sphere, is throwing the gauntlet to every Nigerian and challenging us on our collective responsibility to clean the Augean stable.

If Barrister Farotimi cannot prove his allegations in court, it would not mean that his charges are false. It might only imply that the system which is supposed to guarantee justice has become too corruptly dense to achieve its mandate. But there is also the chance that since the entire judicial system cannot be tarred so broadly with the same brush, Farotimi’s allegation might receive a dispassionate hearing that might deliver justice as we expect it. This might be a tall expectation. Nigeria’s postcolonial predicament has inevitable consequences on the capacity of the judicial system to facilitate the delivery of justice. And this failure also complicates the capacity of the Nigerian state to deliver on its social contract to Nigerians. This is what makes the Babalola-Farotimi case too complex to be decided either in the constitutional court or the court of public opinion. The burdens of postcolonial disruptions that the Nigerian judiciary system carries are enormous: judicial corruption, miscarriage of judgments, executive lawlessness, delayed trial due to insufficient infrastructure, financial dependence on the executive arm of government.

To outline the fundamental challenges of the judicial system in Nigeria this way is not to give in to cynicism and a deterministic mindset that we might be caught in a vice that is inescapable. It is simply to say that the ongoing uproar between the two dramatis personae demonstrates that the court has been given a chance to reflect on the role that (in)justice plays in the fundamental understanding of the Nigerian postcolonial predicament and the capacity of a democratic system to correct itself. When Chief Afe Babalola and Barrister Dele Farotimi are given their day in court, we will have no choice but to trust that same judicial system to deliver unbiased judgment no matter our misgivings about how objective and untainted that judgment could be. This is just a way of saying that though our judicial system is not perfect; it is still the best that we have.

The last words on this reflection on the connection between the ongoing feud between Babalola and Farotimi and Nigeria’s postcolonial predicament must be given to Haile Sellasie, former emperor of Ethiopia: “Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.”

Olaopa is the Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission,Abuja, and Professor of Public Administration.
tolaopa2003@gmail.com

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Fear Of Witchcraft And Politics In Zambia

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Witch Burning, Impunity And Abuses Linked to Witchcraft Beliefs In Benue State
Dr Leo Igwe

By Leo Igwe

The Advocacy for Alleged Witches (AfAW) is concerned over the reported arrest of two men accused of being ‘witchdoctors’ in Zambia. The arrest underscores the potency of witchcraft fears and the connection between occult anxieties and the country’s politics. These individuals were accused of trying to bewitch the Zambian president, Hakainde Hichilema. The police claimed that they had charms. They planned to use the charms to harm the president. The report says the two persons have been charged under Zambia’s Witchcraft Act. The Act criminalizes “possession of charms”, “professing knowledge of witchcraft”, and “cruelty to wild animals”. The police found the two with assorted charms, including a live chameleon.

This development is utterly embarrassing and shows that the Zambian government is slowly losing its focus and bearing.The country has many socio-economic challenges. Suspicion of bewitchment or possession of charms should be the least of its worries at this time. There should be no place for witchcraft and possession of charms in modern politics because there is no evidence for these beliefs and practices. Zambian authorities should not weaponize the Witchcraft Act or use it to justify this incident. Zambian law does not recognize witchcraft. Zambia’s Witchcraft Act criminalizes naming or imputing witchcraft. It prohibits accusing or threatening to accuse any person of being a witch or a wizard. In this case, it is the police who are breaking the law.

Otherwise, how did they know the two individuals were ‘witchdoctors’? Did these persons identify as witch doctors? If not, the police are liable because they named and imputed witchcraft and have to prove that these individuals have witch-doctoring powers. The police claimed to have charged these individuals for possessing “assorted charms”, including a chameleon. Really?

The police in Zambia have questions to answer: What are charms? How did they know that what was in their possession were charms, not pets? Is a chameleon a form of charm? What makes possession of a chameleon possession of a charm? When and how does a chameleon become a charm? The police need to answer these questions and more before one takes them seriously.

Again, did the individuals describe what was in possession as ‘charms’? If they did, does confessing or designating something as a charm make it a charm? And if they did not, the police are liable because they need to prove how those possessions translated into charms.

In addition, the police claimed that the duo wanted to bewitch the president. What does that mean? How did they know? Are the police not contravening a provision under the Witchcraft Act by professing knowledge of witchcraft? Can one harm another person using a chameleon? They claimed that the two persons wanted to use the charms in their possession, including the chameleon to harm the president. How did they know that? What is the evidence for that?

The Advocacy for Alleged Witches calls for an end to this state-sponsored witch hunt. There is no evidence of harm through witchcraft or charms. The Zambian government should desist from witchcraft- related infractions and violations including arbitrary arrest, and detention of innocent citizens. These allegations are baseless and absurd. The arrest was politically motivated. This development demonstrates that Zambian authorities are out of sync with their duty and obligation to uphold the rule of law and protect accused persons.

Zambian authorities need to act in compliance with the 2021 UN resolution, which urged states to take measures to combat abuses linked to witchcraft beliefs and ritual attacks. End witchcraft allegations in Zambia. End witch hunts in Africa now!

Dr Igwe directs the Advocacy for Alleged Witches.

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