They claimed that the goat was actually a car thief who had changed into a goat to (unsuccessfully it appears) escape capture. Many members of African communities still believe in witchcraft, voodoo, shape changing and zombies etc.
These kinds of stories come out far too regularly to be dismissed as just 'eccentricity' and this small sample from this century;
- 19 arrested in Kenya for burning 11 witches to death.
- Sudanese woman (who is described as Danish in the BBC world) arrested for genital mutilation.
- Nigerian 'child witch killer' arrested.
- Zimbabwe makes it legal to practice (good) witchcraft.
- DR Congo society accuses young girls of kindoki (witchcraft).
- South African "Healers" to treat HIV.
- Witch doctors claim they helped Ivory Coast win African Nations Cup.
- South Africa employs "traditional healers" in World Cup.
- Tanzanian 'witch killers' charged.
- Tanzania gets 'voodoo newspaper'.
- Tanzania fights human skinning.
- Benin readies for Voodoo Day.
- Angola's witchcraft's child victims.
- London - 'Witch' child cruelty trio guilty of torture (Angolan asylum seekers).
- London - Muti torso found in Thames (Victim African boy).
Of course non African cultures such as the Saudis believe in witchcraft as well, and no doubt in the multicultural world in which we now live, these beliefs are of 'equal value and validity' as science and the age of reason ..... however the wisdom of that kind of PC nonsense aside, and ignoring the fact that there is much laughter in Nigeria, and elsewhere, at the story, there is a more serious point to this story.
Much of Africa is ill educated and ignorant (frankly not much different than before the colonial era), and there lies the key to its continuing failure as a continent.
Until all Africans are given a free, secular education, they will never escape the primitism and tribalism that scar the post colonial history of sub Saharan Africa.
