Guest post by Leo Igwe: Helen Ukpabio is at it again

Ukpabio: An Unrepentant Witch hunter Re-Launches Her Ministry

Leo Igwe

Nigeria’s notorious witch hunter ‘Lady Apostle’ Helen Ukpabio is at it again. She has just announced a witch finding and witch delivering session tagged “Ember Months Special 2013″. The program is taking place this month (November 11-17, 2013) at the headquarters of the Liberty Gospel Church in Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria.

The theme of the event is ‘Witches on the Run”. Ukpabio is inviting people to come for “free deliverance”. She qualified the deliverance as free just to create the impression that she won’t be charging any fee, and she would not generate income from it!

The poster has an image of a cat at the background. A cat is locally believed to be a witch’s familiar in the region. The image of this familiar invokes fears and fantasies of impending danger or misfortune in the minds of the local population.

The poster further states “Is your family sold out to witches? Are you oppressed or tormented by the witches? Are you a victim/prey/slave/servant in witchcraft coven? Are you a witch or wizard? There is a special deliverance for the possessed and the oppressed.” [Read more…]

The death count in Nigeria

At least 44 people were murdered at a mosque in Konduga, a town in Borno state in northeastern Nigeria on Sunday, the BBC reports. Twelve more were murdered in Ngom village, closer to Maiduguri, the state capital.

Guess who.

“We believe the attack was not unconnected with the cooperation residents are giving to security operatives in identifying and arresting Boko Haram members in their midst,” a senior government official told the AFP news agency. [Read more…]

A bad trend

Goodluck Jonathan has declared a state of emergency in three states in northern Nigeria because of the way Boko Haram keeps killing people.

It is not the first time that the president has declared a state of emergency, but this is a clear admission that far from being weakened by the army offensive, the threat of the Islamist militants is growing, says the BBC’s Will Ross in Lagos.

And it is the first time that Mr Jonathan has admitted that parts of the country are no longer under central government control, says our correspondent.

The Beeb says 2000 people have been killed in “the violence” since 2010. It doesn’t say how many were people blown up or shot down by Boko Haram, but it was probably most or almost all, since that’s what Boko Haram does.