Yes, witchcraft is ‘real’ in Kenyan football

Dependence on witchcraft in football is very rampant in this country and anyone who has ever played in the local league can attest to this.

What you need to know:

  • The old man happened to be the said team’s witchdoctor and two days earlier he had performed rituals to make the team win. He had many lizards ground into fine powder mixed with some herbs and beetle wings also finely ground.
  • Dependence on witchcraft in football is very rampant in this country and anyone who has ever played in the local league can attest to this.
  • I cannot precisely tell you how many snails, slugs, frogs, chameleons, tortoises and other poor creatures have lost their lives and turned into ‘potent’ powder for Kenyan footballers to sprinkle on their jerseys at the necropolis!

Some years ago, players of a coastal football team whose name I don’t care to mention chased an old man in a kanzu from the municipal stadium to the Sega stage.

It is not easy running in an ankle-length kanzu, so our poor old man had to pull it up to his thighs and comically sprint without the use of his arms.

Fear must have put some speed into his emaciated legs and they were a whit faster than the sewing machine needle!

And just in the nick of time, the old fellow nimbly leapt into a moving matatu and saved his skin from his irate assailants.

The old man happened to be the said team’s witchdoctor and two days earlier he had performed rituals to make the team win. He had many lizards ground into fine powder mixed with some herbs and beetle wings also finely ground.

He then cut incisions into the inner thighs of the footballers and in their buttocks and rubbed the powder into the minute wounds. Our great man then took all the team jerseys to the cemetery and had them ‘sleep’ therein for one night.

NAKED IN THE GRAVEYARD

The players ran in circles naked in the graveyard while chanting some incoherent incantations the night before the match.

But he wasn’t through with them yet; each player took turns lying in an unused coffin for two minutes. Finally, he forbade them from entering the pitch via the same entrance as their opponents.

The last injunction was hard to follow since it meant that the team would have to pay at the gates for their own match!

There was no other alternative but to scale the walls like some errant fans do. While they were at it, the police noticed them and descended upon them with clubs before realising they were the home team.

But by this time, their ace striker and captain had sustained fractures on their ankles. As it were, the team lost the match 5-0 and that was the reason why the old magician in a dirty kanzu had to run for his dear life.

This incident did not shake their belief in witchcraft and football; it only confirmed to them that their witchdoctor was a ‘fake’. I’m very sure they must have gone to consult a more credible witchdoctor.

Dependence on witchcraft in football is very rampant in this country and anyone who has ever played in the local league can attest to this.

The players you see on the pitch often conceal repulsive charms and magical herbs to make them perform better. Some are so hooked on the stuff that in the absence of these native ‘doctors’ and the rituals, their form suddenly nosedives.

JUJUMAN VALUE

Strangely, in some clubs the jujuman holds more premium and value than the coach and his technical bench.

I cannot precisely tell you how many snails, slugs, frogs, chameleons, tortoises and other poor creatures have lost their lives and turned into ‘potent’ powder for Kenyan footballers to sprinkle on their jerseys at the necropolis!

I have no idea how many human thighbones have been illegally exhumed for our superstitious players to run round with at some ungodly hour in the cemeteries on the eve of a match!

But when such teams lose the match, they don’t see the folly of their beliefs but they read insufficiency on the part of their juju; they don’t understand their sluggishness during the game is as a result of lack of practise, but they assume it is due to the stronger juju of their opponents.

The Sangoma’s instructions, however queer, are religiously followed while those of the poor coach are given half an ear! Priorities are turned upside down and many good players lose their form much earlier than they ought to have.

It is a blot upon our football that should be shunned as much as the use of performance enhancing drugs are.

But so long as we shall have weak brains who depend upon witchcraft for better performance, our football will not move an inch forward.

By the way, that Lionel Messi must have a very dependable jujuman!