Friday, August 08, 2003

Witchdoctors and cops

A witch doctor in Nigeria has been arrested for possessing a human skull. According to news agency Reuters, police recovered other items like cowries and horns from the man's shrine in the city of Benin, about 180 miles northeast of the commercial hub of Lagos. The 80-year-old witch doctor was suspected of using human parts for rituals.

Gross, you will say. Funny cops is my opinion. Charge the guy with witchdoctoring, but what's that got with skulls. This is like charging a carpenter for carrying hammer and nails, for they can be. The other day my friend nailed his finger to the wall. He saved his finger but lost his middle finger nail, when the hammer missed the nail and hit his fingernail.

The Nigerian cops also need to know that they cannot charge a woman for possessing breasts and other such parts, if the pornography law says one can't show them in public. Book them for public exposure not for what's essential parts of the body.

Witchdoctors need to carry skulls to fulfill the desire of his customers, who wouldn't believe him if he didn't have those skulls and horns. It's part of his business.

I am a journalist. My job is to write. But to call people names is none of my business. If I were in Nigeria and write against the President of Nigeria, can the cops arrest for me for possessing a keyboard?

The cops would tell the jdge: "Melord, he has a keyboard." And the judge with charge me with sitting on the court bench.
That's if the judge was German. Because a German court did just that. It fined a man 75 euros for sitting on a park bench.

His crime: The bench was next to a playground in the Botanical Garden. The police had sent him a 150-euro challan, but the man went to court. The judge reduced it to 75 euros, after the police told the court that there were no children in the playground at that time.

The story behind this is that police have cracked down on people hanging around playgrounds if they are not accompanied by a child.

No comments: