What message was brand-new Governor of Edo State Monday Okpebholo sending to Nigerians when he said at a thanksgiving service on Wednesday last week that he found a dead bat on his bed hours before INEC declared him winner of the governorship election? Speaking during a praise concert attended by top politicians, eminent clerics and gospel musicians from across the country as part of activities marking his inauguration, Governor Okpebholo said, “I want to thank God. In this last election (on September 21, 2024], while I was praising God, they (his opponents) were busy operating from Arise. They were busy operating from Facebook. They were busy operating from Channels. But I took the battle to God, because I knew the secret…After the election, in the morning of Sunday, September 22, 2024, I came into my room. I met a bat that died on my bed, without me shooting any arrow, but the Spirit of God was there. The arrow of God settled it. The hand of God delivered me.”
The governor’s message was a little bit convoluted but me, since I am not given to superstition, I thought of two possible ways in which a bat could have found itself on the governor’s bed. One possible way was that it found its way into the roof of the house, probably could not find its way out, and it fell sick or starved to death right inside the roof and fell onto the governor’s bed. I thought of this possibility because when I was growing up in my grandfather’s house in our village, bats were plentiful and they shrieked and wriggled their way into trees and into any hole they could find in the roofs of houses, often breeding in there. Every now and then we found a dead bat having fallen from the trees or the rooftops but my grandfather never thought of it as a spiritual attack.
Now, I do not know Mr. Okpebholo’s house in Benin, but I imagine that it is well maintained with no holes in the roof, so a bat might not find a hole to squeak through. That leaves the second possibility, that someone procured the bat from somewhere, possibly killed it himself or herself, and then dropped it onto the governor’s bed. Who could that be? From the little I know of the set up of African families, few people usually have access to the Oga’s master bedroom. I am not accusing anyone but the shortlist includes Oga’s wife, his children [usually the smaller ones, because adult children usually keep away from their father’s bedroom] and then one or two housemaids who are in charge of cleaning the room. Ok, every now and then, a plumber, an electrician, a carpenter, a glazier, a painter or a fumigator may be invited into the room to perform some repair job, usually under the watchful eyes of a more trusted fellow. So, who could possibly have dropped the dead bat unto Oga’s bed?
If such a bat were to be found on the bed of, say, the British Prime Minister, the US President, President of the Russian Federation, Emperor of Japan or President of China, the persons responsible for cleaning the bedroom will at worst be accused of carelessness and would get the sack. The bedsheets will then be changed and the room will be fumigated, lest bacteria and viruses from the dead bat are strewn around. White House staff, in particular, are likely to send the dead bat to a veterinary clinic to perform an autopsy and determine what killed it. If it is determined that it died from a disease, then they will send its carcass over to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia to determine if it is not a certain epidemic that could spread to other bats hanging in Washington area’s spectacular cherry blossom trees, which were gifted to the city by the Emperor of Japan in 1912.
In the light of Governor Okpebholo’s announcement, however, panic is certain to envelop the entire Government House in Benin. No one will think of calling in a veterinary pathologist. Not at all. Much more likely, there will be a scramble to get to the houses of prayer warriors, pastors, maybe some imams, and the most powerful babalawos to immediately embark upon prayers and incantations in order to ward off the evil spirits that the dead bat was meant to deliver to the Governor’s bedroom. Never mind it did not succeed in its immediate mission because a few hours after it was found, Okpebholo was declared elected and two months later, he was sworn in as governor. He denied that he ever consulted his own babalawos and that he relied only on God. This is a bit doubtful, because powerful Nigerian politicians are known to cross the boundaries of religion during election scrambles to seek help from clerics of all faiths, just in case.
Inviting clerics and babalawos to unravel the mystery of the dead bat could however compound the governor’s problems instead of solving them. A prayer warrior or a babalawo is likely to say he knows who sent the bat. He will dramatically stop short of revealing the name. Instead, he will make a general description that will render nearly everybody around the house suspect. He will say, for example, that it is “somebody very close to His Excellency.” This will include every body from family members to close friends to party chieftains to godfathers to maids to drivers to side chicks.
This will not be the first time that spiritual warfare is taking place in a powerful place in Nigeria. In early 2016, as soon as Yahaya Bello was inaugurated as Governor of Kogi State, he sent bulldozers to demolish six major roundabouts around the state capital, Lokoja, in order to dig up charms buried in them by the former administration of Captain Idris Wada. When I wrote about it in a column, I received a call from a man who told me he was a close associate of the governor. He said, “You Mahmud, you don’t know Igalas! Do you know the kind of evil things they buried in those round abouts? When we entered this Government House, do you know what we found? Blood, charms and amulets scattered all over!” I offered the unsolicited advice that rather than demolish the roundabouts, they should have brought their own clerics and babalawos to spiritually demolish the buried charms.
Spiritual warfare in Nigerian politics cuts across all regions and all religions. In 1983, during the hotly contested Unity Party of Nigeria [UPN] Oyo State congress in Ibadan, policemen frisking delegates before they went into the hall found a live tortoise strapped to the waist of a delegate. Even that did not surprise me, because in 1979 when, as students, we visited NPN’s Sokoto State candidate Alhaji Shehu Kangiwa days before the governorship election, he told us that a marabout brought to him a charm, told him to tie it to the leg of a live chicken and cut off the leg. The worldly Kangiwa laughed heartily, uttered an expletive and told the marabout that he couldn’t bring himself to cut off the leg of a live chicken.
Some weeks ago, I recounted in this column a story I read in the New Nigerian Newspaper in 1984, about the Niger State NPP governorship candidate Alhassan Badakoshi who allegedly spent two nights in the FEDECO office in Minna on the advice of a marabout, but was chased out by mobile policemen before he could complete the three prescribed nights. Exactly forty years after I read that story, the then Governor of Niger State and current Emir of Suleja, Alhaji Muhammadu Awwal Ibrahim, sent word that it was not true. The Emir however said something akin to that did occur in 1983. He was on a re-election campaign tour of Bidda but before he left his lodge to the rally ground, word reached him that his opponents had planted powerful charms all along the designated route.
His aides were in panic and, given the widely held belief in Northern Nigeria that Nupe charms are very potent, they urged him to cancel the trip. The deeply religious Malam Awwal insisted on going ahead. But even he took a precaution. He whispered something into the ears of his ADC and the driver of his car. While the lead vehicles in the convoy and the tumultuous crowd of supporters went along the designated route, the governor’s car, alone, suddenly diverted to another route and arrived at the rally ground. When he took the mic to address the rally, the governor said, “Those who planted charms on our route, they should know that they did not succeed.”
The most sensational case of spiritual warfare in Nigerian politics was the Okija shrine saga of 2003. Before he was declared winner of the Anambra State governorship election [reversed by the courts three years later], PDP candidate Dr. Chris Ngige was said to have been taken to the powerful shrine by his godfather Chris Ubah to swear an oath of loyalty. He even signed a post-dated resignation letter, to go into effect anytime he displeased the godfather.
Governor Okpebholo claims that he did not consult any prayer warriors during his election campaign and that he relies only on God. He should have a rethink. Edo State is very fertile ground for spiritual warfare. In 1991, the Isekhure [chief priest] of Benin, Nosakhare Isekhure, placed the curse of the Oba of Benin on the head of anyone who voted for NRC candidate Lucky Igbinedion because his father, the Esama, was “an enemy of the Oba.” Thousands of voters fled from Lucky and he lost the election to SDP’s John Odigie-Oyegun.
Within days of his assuming office, Governor Okpebholo has stopped revenue collectors, sacked permanent secretaries brought from outside the civil service, dissolved the boards of all state-owned corporations and ordered a probe into former governor Andrew Obaseki’s tenure. The way he is going, he might soon find other things on his bed. Not a small bat this time, but a cobra from Edo forests or a crocodile from the River Niger shores of Agenebode.
