In search of Aso Rock’s ‘witch’

The most popular story out there is that the witch, an old Gbagyi woman, is believed to be over 200 years old, around a village called Oviye. One resident of Oviye even told Weekly Trust: “Many have seen her, wearing the same attire on different occasions, over the years. But no-one in the area knows […]

The most popular story out there is that the witch, an old Gbagyi woman, is believed to be over 200 years old, around a village called Oviye. One resident of Oviye even told Weekly Trust: “Many have seen her, wearing the same attire on different occasions, over the years. But no-one in the area knows exactly where she dwells.”

Many respondents, all of whom were Gbagyi aborigines that were moved from Oviye by the Nigerian Army that inhabits part of the area, said the old ‘Gbagyi witch’ lives in one of several caves within Aso Rock. They also said efforts to speak to her whenever she passes by have proved futile.

“She never utters a word. If you tried to follow her, she would just disappear,” said 80-year-old Mama Gbagyi, who lives in Kaima, another small village behind towering, imposing Aso Rock. Mama is the widow of late Sarki Yakubu Zakoi, she told Weekly Trust.

The search for Aso Rock’s mysterious ‘witch’ took our reporter to a hamlet behind Angon Mada, where an old, frail-looking female herbalist denied being the one. “I am not the much-talked-about Gbagyi witch,” she said, refusing to be photographed, surprisingly aware of the exposure that would follow an appearance in the media. “When I first saw her, I was a spinster, many years ago, even before Nigeria’s independence in 1960. But when I saw her last, six years ago, she looked exactly the same.”

But which witch?

Back at Oviye, a popular spot uniquely surrounded by huge, smooth rocks is fast becoming a healing sanctuary. One of the people around, looking unlike the others, was a woman dressed in a jeans and she said: “My name is Rosemary. I’m a catholic. Initially, I was worshiping in Mambila Barracks but when I began to use God’s gift to me to help others. The church, being catholic, became uncomfortable with the kind of attention I was having within and outside the barracks. For Catholics, anything outside the conservative reading of sermons like speaking in tongues and healing the sick or saving victims of witchcraft are not right.”

Rosemary has never heard of the mystical Gbagyi witch and she claims she is not influenced by any black magic. Standing in her sanctuary that is floored by a large rock, Rosemary pulled off her shoes and began to pray for a teenage girl.

Away from Rosemary’s sanctuary and after an hour’s walk, mid-way to the top of Aso Rock, Weekly Trust is back at Kaima village. According to the villagers, the place Rosemary converted into a healing sanctuary was actually one of their shrines, were their ancestors madk sacrifices. “The good spirits are there. That is why she can do what she is doing,” said a villager.

But Amos, Mama Gbagyi’s son, said the witch most likely resides in one of the caves around the village. This reporter offered to investigate the caves, but after going to two of such, one of which is a shrine, the search was suspended for the large number of the caves ranging from small, to medium and even large.

At one of the caves, housing a shrine, a snake was seen slithering out. One of Weekly Trust’s guides, Hyenajyi, a boy in his late teens yet married with children, assured everyone that the snake had left. He entered the cave to seek permission for taking photographs of the shrine. “Every year we slaughter animals of all kinds for our gods to protect us from the pythons and other wild animals that occasionally disturb us and equally pray that no calamity befalls Abuja,” said Amos.

Life…on the rock

For the villagers to be praying for Abuja is testament to their clean hearts. After all, it is the same Abuja’s development that saw them relocated to the wilderness. “Our children cannot go to school early because they are too young to climb. We wait until they are old and strong enough to join primary school,” Mama said emphatically. “When we are sick, our young men carry us on their shoulders down to the city for treatment. No one sees us as human beings at the city, yet we pray for them and ourselves.”

Mama told Weekly Trust that in the past, successive governments buy or give them money to purchase cows for sacrifice. “But today, the government has stopped doing that and we have not sacrificed any cow of recent. Only goats and the gods may not be well pleased,” she added. According to another villager, it is the lack of animal blood sacrifice on Aso Rock that causes those occupying nearby Aso Rock [Presidential Villa] not to think properly. At that point, this reporter bid his ‘hosts’ goodbye, leaving behind unexplored caverns and unanswered questions of the Gbagyi witch of Aso Rock.