‘Modernization of Witchcraft’ and Evangelical Throwbacks in Africa -By Leo Igwe

The Advocacy for Alleged Witches is deeply concerned over a You Tube video, Modernization of Witchcraft, by one Stephanie Ike Okafor. This video, a piece of Christian waffle, was supposedly a part of a divine mandated teaching series. It constitutes another misguided attempt by an uninformed, misinformed, historically unaware African woman of God to reinforce the notion of ‘witchcraft’ and malevolent magic. Ms Ike Okafor used this 21 minute video, interspersed with references to the Christian holy book, the Bible, to draw attention to her idea of modern day witchcraft and to warn against this act of the kingdom of darkness.

To give legitimacy and credibility to her jumbled sermon, Ike Okafor claimed at the beginning of the video that the Lord spoke to her and told her what to discuss and cover. While acknowledging the popular notion of witchcraft as people coming together to place a spell on others, she associated ignorance, deception and rebellion against God with the modernization of witchcraft. For her, modernization of witchcraft reflects the way that Satan has modernized rebellion against God (whatever that means).

This video is suffused with superstitions, ignorance, misconceptions and mistaken ideas about nature and the Bible. African Christians should ignore and disregard this message of deceit, this ministration from an impostor. There is no evidence that God sent or spoke to Stephanie Ike Okafor and instructed her to do a video on the modernization of witchcraft. Thus the video message is founded on a lie, the same falsehood that all supposed divinely revealed texts was based; the same lie that self acclaimed men and women of god used to legitimize their mischievous assumptions, speculations and suppositions.

Ms Ike Okafor is a charlatan, scriptural literalist, and evangelical throwback who has no idea or understanding of witchcraft, modernization and the history of Christianity. Ike Okafor based her message on the Christian holy book. Indeed the Bible contains verses that legitimize witchcraft beliefs and harmful magic. The Christian holy book is ancient literature that is filled with outdated messages and norms. The Bible was written over a thousand years ago, at a time and by people who believed that witchcraft was a crime. Hence the Bible sanctioned witch persecution and killing. Exodus 22 18 enjoins believers to “Suffer not a witch to live”. However, post witch hunt and post Enlightenment missionaries from the West, who did not believe in witchcraft as popularly the case in Africa, introduced Christianity to the region. Unfortunately, many African Christians have shunned this version of Christianity. Many have yet to abandon the belief that people harm and can harm others through supernatural means. Hence, witch hunting rages in Christian Africa.

Messages and preaching like that of Stephanie Ike Okafor are mainly responsible for the perpetuation and pervasiveness of this make belief, and the violence and abuses linked to allegations of witchcraft and demonic possession. African skeptics, humanists and rationalists should denounce these superstitious imputations. They should rally against witch hunting pastors like Ms Ike Okafor and their attempts to legitimize and sanctify witch hunting in 21st century African and black communities.