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Christians across the country have been encouraged to pray and pushback against a forthcoming open air crusade by witch doctors in Lwengo district, located in the central region of Uganda.
Lwengo, which has more than 2,000 shrines, will on 31st March 2023 draw hundreds of witch doctors, sorcerer, traditional healers and conjurers among others, for rituals designed to venerate ancestral spirits and advance fetishism, according to announcements running on various media channels. This will be under the theme: ‘Komawo ekka: Tutereze ebyaffe’
“Imagine witch doctors have organised an open air crusade. Let us all raise our voices and also pray against this. We cannot allow this to happen in our country. Uganda belongs to Jesus Christ,” one Pastor whose name is withheld for security reasons, spoke to Uganda Christian News on Wednesday.
The Church must be awake and alert to what is happening around about them, he continued.
Christianity is the predominant religion in Uganda (84 percent), and the country’s coat of arms bears the motto “For God and My Country.”
In 2018, the Ugandan government, through its agency, Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), banned adverts on local radios and public address systems that promote activities of witchdoctors.
“Increasingly, radio stations are advertising services of witchdoctors on their airwaves,” a government statement said. “Managers are required to make sure that witchdoctors are not permitted to lure people … via their stations.”
The same year (2018), Police announced it will register all witch doctors and shrines in Lwengo District to curb ritual murders that had rocked the district at the time.
Earlier speaking to state aided news daily the New Vision, Paul Jjemba, a former witchcraft practitioner has urged Ugandans to stop practicing witchcraft and turning to shrines for “miracles”, saying that the so-called practitioners only fleece them of their hard-earned money.
“These people are doing nothing apart from taking your money while others merely use [have sex with] women under the pretext of giving them fertility, while those who are still going there are facing more problems,” he told the New Vision. “I worked as a witchdoctor for several years and I know whatever I am talking about.”
He went to stress that nothing spiritual takes place in these shrines apart from stealing people’s money and abusing women and girls.
