There was pandemonium on Thursday at Ofankor, a suburb of Accra, when an Asafo group heckled and landed hefty slaps on the face of a self-acclaimed Nigerienne witch-hunter as he attempted to fell a tree which supposedly harbour witches.

The irate youth claimed that the tree, far from being a base for witches, was a shrine to which the witch-hunter had no right of access.

According to the Daily Guide, after the slaps, the youth demanded that he paid a fine of one cow, six sheep, one bottle of local gin, (akpeteshie) and six bottles of schnapps at the palace of the chief of the town.

After some haggling and bargaining, the chief dropped the cow from the list.

The incident stalled construction work on the Ofankor/Achimota road for the day, while the tree has been hacked considerably by the chain saw.

According to the Chief Linguist of the Asere Stool, Nii Ashietey Tetteh, the place where the Onyina (ceiba) tree stood was once a shrine, harbouring the gods of the land.

It was therefore sacrilegious for anybody and for that matter a stranger like 'Professor' Amidu Sabo Azeez to go there and begin cutting down the tree without seeking the permission of custodians of the land.

He confirmed that the youth actually brought the man to the palace because they realized that what he sought to do was not right.

Amidu Azeez himself agreed to pacify the gods in due course.

The aggrieved Chief Linguist said over the years, the elders of the town had spent a lot of money appeasing the gods in order to stop the rampant accidents at the spot.

He stressed that after many fatal accidents at the location, the elders consulted an oracle, which advised them on what to do.

This information, he continued, was shared with the Greater Accra Regional Minister and other relevant personalities.

The fatal accidents, Nii Ashietey noted, ceased after the performance of the prescribed rituals, which according to him ran into several millions of cedis.

Some of the residents of the town who spoke to DAILY GUIDE said three marine spirits, (maame-water) - two females and a male - are inhabiting the tree, for which reason cutting it down proved unsuccessful in previous attempts.

They pointed out that five chainsaws broke down in previous attempts and for them nobody could fell the tree.


Source: Daily Guide