By Oyunga Pala
There has been a spike of bizarre news story of rather unusual standards even for news in Kenya. A man who was pronounced dead and transferred to the morgue walks out of cold storage and spooks everyone out.
He was lucky he didn’t provoke mob justice. An earlier news story report on a variation of the physical revival happened with tragically ironic consequences. A man thought to be dead, woke up from his coma during his burial ceremony and started banging the coffin. The superstitious mourners stoned him to death out of fear in the sardonic belief that they were killing a ghost.
Another regularly featured occurrence is the frequent stories backed by pictorial evidence of grown men on all fours mowing grass like a cow. There are usually suspected thieves who find themselves possessed by a spell that compels them to mow grass. The act serves as the undisputed evidence of their guilt.
I don’t know the exact traditional science at play here but there are enough witnesses who claim the spells do work. It seems to be working quite effectively in deterring petty criminals in rural areas.
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The custodians of these spell-casting abilities should be recruited to help fight crime because we could all do with some swifter justice.
Most Kenyans would get onboard with the idea of a witchdoctor from the special crimes police department who dispenses justice with flair. There are numerous testimonies out there of efficacy of these occult methods of crime busting. There are places in this country that have earned a reputation for maintaining an alternative justice system to tackle mostly petty crime.
Anyone who attempts to steal will suffer the consequences in real time. This is another reason to celebrate Kenya at 50, so drop the cynical attitude towards the paranormal resources within.
