Is your sleep being disturbed? You may be a victim of demonic oppression.

“There are demonic agents that oppress people in their sleep and make it difficult for one to wake up from night…it is usually like a heavy load is placed on you…”- Murphy Jemba, BrillaFM  AOP

I often explore possibilities of events and how our lives would have turned out had earlier events taken a different route. A key question I ponder: what are the contributions of the African Witches to the present economy? Nothing! Gossip, mischief? Yes!!

One of the knotty issues is the operations of the African witches. So many powers arrogated to them little evidence to corroborate their existence.

A curious trend is how jobless and mischievous these demonic agents are…indeed; some of the sobriquets of the devil—their master, are: He who has eyes but whines with the nose; He who owns clothes but adorned with tattered mud…chief of all, he who wraps a 100yards of cloth but finds it insufficient for covering. The forgoing reveals an economy of waste!

How do you explain a witch at the risk of being caught, flew all the way from his/her home only to come and sit on your head? Turns out a lot of people have something to say about it:

Testimony 1: My brother that thing is real o…Those people will just sit on your head and will not allow you to wake up. My pastor said, when witches are around they won’t let you open your eyes until they’ve gone.

Question: What is the economic (Spiritual) justification of a witch just sitting on your head? Are you saying these witches just left their home just to come have a sit-out on your head? How did you pastor come to the knowledge of their modus operandi?

Testimony 2: Hello Murphy! That thing happened to my guy in Lagos and even when he was posted for service to another state they followed him there too.

Question: Haba brother! So, witches are now so keen on your affairs they relocate with you? To what end?

Testimony 3: Murphy, if I tell you wetin witches do me ehn? One day they just sat on my head I couldn’t stand up to take a pee. The next morning, I met myself in a soaked bed.

Question: Since, when did bed wetting become a job prescription of the demons?

All the callers corroborated the oppression story but on a further reflection you see a nation of people silently suffering with mental health issues. A lady caller even alleged that her Teddy bear woke up in the mid of the night and attempted to rape her.

Why I have my questions about the operations of the demons – there existence or otherwise, these peoples’ testimonies left me with more questions about the state of their health.

So, this is a shout out to all the demons out there to take on more productive enterprise. I can’t imagine with all the tales about their prowess, they only use it to sit on peoples’ heads and make them bed-wet.

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Please, share your experience with me. Have you been oppressed by witches or demons before? Do you believe in their existence?

For you

This is to you

Whose sighs punctured the rhythm of the nights

Whose burden depressed the mattress

Whose tears drenched the pillowcases

May this console the loss you’ve found

May your faith find substance in your fate

May this be to you what I couldn’t say or do

SO YOU THINK THE WORLD IS AGAINST YOU? ME TOO.

A Depressed soul

If you’ve wandered along this plane long enough to come to that realization that the world is up against you but have had no sympathy from anyone yet, I welcome you to the pity cathedral.

Honestly, I have been there and back – felt it all. That feeling of overwhelming crush, the weight that builds the muscles of your heart and makes its contraction difficult, the sigh that plays a monotonous hum and the clap-cheering of imaginary mockery.

What baffles me is how your loved ones fail to reckon with your struggles. Can’t they see? Couldn’t they come to your rescue against the conspiracy of nature? Oh, you think the world turns them against you too? Now, I see you are in the valley of reckoning. You see how much the world owes you and how badly it defaults in payment. Has any of those you went miles for denied you the pleasure of coming a foot close to your destiny?

And, suddenly, you feel like quitting the scene. No, not like the misguided fundamentalist, only the method equals you and them.

There are so many ways of exiting the scene, some at the end of a cheering performance with a bow and standing ovation from the audience; some others, through the emergence doors are the slightest smoking within the cinema. The choice of which route to take is entirely yours as with many choices that life deals you on every round of the game.

But take a moment to meet some dignitaries in this cathedral for we take pleasure in sympathizing with one another and affirming the suffering of others.

Our priest is a man who suffered a devastating stroke at the peak of his prime but the funny dude went on to survive the plague and became the voice of reasoning to his generation, bringing words of hope and enlightenment to the youths. This guy could have given up and quietly ceded defeat as many did but he just thrived on for a day like this.

Oh, have you met our Deacon? That Dude is another case entirely. He lost his investment in the great depression of 2009, in a world worst than that of Job. Imagine the media mockery, the societal snubbing, his family all didn’t die but his wife divorced him and married a thriving businessman, his children were taken over by the social welfare and he was wanted for unpaid loans. This man rose to become the CEO of a new generation bank and serves aptly as our counsellor in this cathedral.

Wait a second, our choir mistress’ case is so pitiable you could have volunteered to help end her miserable life were you in close quarters then. She had sponsored her first lover, from a poor background, through the university against her parents’ will. The husband-to-be paid her back handsomely by eloping with her best friend a fortnight to their marriage. This never-say-ever lady went on to marry the most adorable man ever to trend the surface of the earth according to her.

As you can see, life is never ending. Defeat is never final.

That you are where you are today is not a guarantee that you would be there tomorrow. Life is an act not a science. Your actions and inactions determine your destination in life.

Life is neutral.

That you are out on a raining day, even if you were beaten by the rain days earlier, don’t guarantee you to be dry at the end of the day.

Life doesn’t owe anyone anything other than shared graces.

If you are in a position to render any help, you have better do it for those who can’t pay you back.

The same rain shall pour on the farm of the indolent and the industrious. The same wind shall blow the way of the fragile and the sure-footed foundation the only differentiator is our level of preparation.

Principles are static, but man is dynamic. You can pattern your life after manners it will profit you in alignment with the stated principle of life.

Life is about sowing and reaping, give and take and sacrifices in between.

So, you think the world is against you? Think again!