Let me do a thread on my encounters with herbalists in Nigeria. The first encounter, I was very young staying with my older brother in Nigerian Army Engineers baracks Ilese, Ijebu Ode. There was a case of armed robbery. The armed robbers were caught and they confessed.
They also confessed that they have given some of the loot to their “jazzman” who is in one bush. He had promised them protection and successful operation. Some soldiers were mobilized to bring in the Babalawo. They went into the bush and came back with Baba. Not one shot fired.
I witnessed how they paraded these men and their jazzman. The only logical conclusion for me then was that the babalawo is a fake one. A real Baba would have used “ofę” a popular Jazz for teleporting.
My second encounter was when some thieves came to a neighborhood I was living in Egbeda or so. There was sporadic gun shots all through the night. Everyone was huddled together under the bed, table and what have you. After about 4 hours the shooting stopped and we all came out
But all was not well. The babalawo living 2 streets or so away had tried to jump his own fence into the bush when the bottles on his fence cut him deeply on his thigh. He was going to bleed to death if not for timely intervention. He was rushed to the clinic.
Again my conclusion was this wasn’t a true jazzman even though people troop to his shrine to do one jazz or another. He must have been decieving them. A true jazzman will even come out and confront the thieves. He will have all manner of protection.
A third encounter was with one of my dad’s friends who is an inter-state driver. He had gone to do jazz to protect him from road accidents. All was well and anytime he had the jazz with him, his car/bus wasn’t involved in an accident.
One day he was on the road when he thought he had forgotten his jazz at home. He checked his trouser pocked where he normally keep the jazz but it wasn’t there. Fear gripped him. He started panicking and true to word he was involved in an accident before he got to his destination
He said as he was sitting on the grass he felt something in his breast pocket. He touched it and it was the jazz. That was when he remembered he had kept the jazz in his breast pocket not trouser pocket because he had some money in his trousers that morning.
He said he was conflicted and when he got home he decided to look into the jazz. He untied the many black hair weaving thread until he came upon a picce of paper cut from newspapers. Nothing more. You can draw your own conclusion from this story.
The fourth and final encounter was with my former landlord who is also an herbalist. I was living with my friend Holy and his brother Moses and Moses’s friend Bayo. 4 of us in a small room. Baba didn’t like the idea. He wants us out.
His argument was that he only rented the place to Holy. Now there are four guys. But Holy said he’s not loving out until his 2 years rent expired. It was a battle and every once in a while, we will be in a war of words with Baba.
One day myself and holy came back and saw something hanging on our door. Neighbors said it was Baba that put it there. We brought the thing down. Poured kerosene on it and burnt it. We went into the house ate and Slept.
Moses and Bayo came later and we told them what the Baba has done. So the next morning before the man come out at 6. They drew a line with some colored chalk on his doorstep and said “if dem born you we’ll cross this line”
To our surprise, Baba refused to come out. We had a few laughs. Go take our shower and went to work. Forgetting all about the chalk and Baba. Myself and holy came back first and we saw a crowd had gathered with some policemen.
Baba had refused to come out all day. He had sent for his sons and those ones had brought policemen. They were going to arrest Moses and Bayo. We told the policemen that it was a joke and they did that because Baba hung jazz on our door the previous day.
If not for the corroboration of neighbors, they would have arrested us. They asked us to clean the line. We did and Baba came out. Safe to say Baba didn’t disturb us again until I left the place. You can draw your own conclusions from this story as well.
