Some students of the University
of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), Enugu state, have kicked against an upcoming
conference on witchcraft.
The
conference being organised by the B.I.C Ijomah Centre for Policy and Research
in UNN, will hold between November 26 and November 27.
As the date draws nearer, members
of the university community, including students and staff, who are opposed to
the programme, have already started staging protests against it.
While some persons are organising
online campaigns to register their displeasure over the conference others are
circulating posters calling for its cancellation.
Aside social media campaigns,
some persons have put together special prayers to “fire back” at what they
described as “the work of the agents of darkness.”
Some of the posters littering
around the school have inscriptions such as: “UNN belongs to Jesus”; “Witches
and Wizard, No vacancy!” “Say no to the meeting of Witches and Wizard’, “We are
a Christian community”; “Don’t pollute our environment”; “We plead the blood of
Jesus over UNN, hence we reject all forms of witchcraft overtly or covertly”.
In an interview with TheCable,
Chidi Ugwu, a lecturer who is one of those planning the conference, said
contrary to insinuations, the event has nothing to do with actual “witches and
wizards.”
He said the conference is
strictly an academic exercise and is being organised to interrogate what people
associate with witchcraft.
“If you have heard that we are
calling for a meeting of witches and wizards in UNN, that is not true,” he said on Monday.
“We want to interrogate the
various things people think is witchcraft, the things people think are caused
by witchcraft, the blames people give to witchcraft and the different practices
in different parts of the world that are related to witchcraft.
“We will also look at the
implications; the social implications of some of these beliefs that people have
and the social manifestations of what people think when they say this is a
witch or wizard.
“We are not calling a conference
for people to die and go to the spirit world to know whether there are witches
or not.”
The keynote speaker at the
conference is David Ker, former vice-chancellor of Benue State University,
while P. J. Ezeh and Damian Opata, two professors at the university, will
present the leader paper.
Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com