OBBO: An African president wages the strangest of wars

It is the witchcraft season in Africa. Over the weekend, there was a report on CNN about some frightening chaps in Burundi who had been arrested for the murder of their fellow citizens with albinism.

They, like others in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania, were supplying witchdoctors and other customers who believe that the limbs, skin, or intimate body parts of albinos can be used to bring one great wealth, to cure infertility, and to ward off evil spirits.

Dozens of albinos have been killed in the region for ritual purposes over the last two years.

In Kenya, in recent months there have been stories of old men with grey hair being hunted down because they were believed to be evil witchdoctors.

Old women with red eyes have been lynched in the ignorant belief that they are responsible for failed rains, poor harvests, and all manner of misfortunes.

However, East Africa’s witchdoctors and witch-hunters must now stand aside and let the grandmaster of the trade take over. When it comes to matters supernatural, Gambia’s President Yahya Jammeh is in a class of his own.

An amazing new report by Amnesty International alleges that Jammeh is leading a state witch-hunt in which as many as 1,000 people have been kidnapped from their villages and taken to secret detention centres where they have been stripped, beaten and poisoned.

Witnesses told Amnesty International that Jammeh’s personal guard, along with armed police and intelligence officers, are roaming villages and small towns rounding up ‘‘suspects’’.

But Jammeh has a rare bizarre streak, so this is no ordinary witch-hunt.

His government has imported its own witchdoctors from Guinea, who accompany Gambian security in their operations. Also, the detention centre where the suspected witches are taken is, appropriately, in Jammeh’s hometown.

Jammeh is not cracking down on witchdoctors because he is a scientific president who knows it is quackery. Far from it. He is into witchcraft, and believes it was responsible for the death of his favourite aunt! Not trusting Gambian witchdoctors, he brought in expatriates from Guinea to deal with the threat.

None of this should come as a surprise because, as the British newspaper, The Independent, reminds those of us who might have forgotten, two years ago Jammeh caused a stir when he claimed that some medicines he was concocting in the kitchen could cure Aids and asthma.

Jammeh invited the media to witness him administering the ‘‘miracle’’ cure.

When a UN official scoffed at his claims, he was bundled out of the country. Jammeh’s Aids medicine is unique because, he claimed, it only works if taken on Thursdays! Many people believe Jammeh has gone round the bend, and is no longer of sound mind.

But one cannot help suspect that he is cracking down on witchdoctors because he wants to monopolise the business. And we thought we had problems with our leaders.