Awo’s perspectives on a wide variety of issues including African juju, traditional African medicine, witchcraft, and the phenomenon of magun i.e. the belief among the Yoruba that a man who has sex with a woman laced with certain types of juju would die during the act are contained in a wide ranging intellectual discussion/ conversation between the late sage and the late renowned academic philosopher, Professor Moses Makinde, which took place at Awolowo’s residence in Apapa, Lagos, on Saturday, 4th April, 1987.
The session which lasted over three and a half hours covered diverse subjects ranging from the ideas of the great philosophers, the existence or otherwise of God, the nature of good and evil, politics, corruption, development and underdevelopment and much more. It was an intellectual tour de force between two most remarkable men. The text of the interview is published as chapter 7 of the book, ‘Awo as a philosopher’ by Professor Makinde. It is really difficult for me to capture the essence of this interview succinctly by paraphrasing the discourses of the two men. To maximally enjoy and benefit from the book, there is no alternative to actually reading it through particularly the chapter 7 referred to.
I will thus largely be quoting from Awo’s responses to Professor Makinde on the aforementioned issues relevant to this piece. For example, on the question of whether or not something called African science exists, Awo is categorical in his response. In his words: “African science? African science? There is nothing like that. If you look at the definition, you may want to say that this particular branch of science was first founded in Africa, that is quite a different matter, but science is science and must not be related to any region of the world as American science, British science, Chinese science, or African science. Science is simply science, a universal knowledge”.
Not satisfied, the professor probed Awo further pointing out that African science can be likened to what is known as metaphysical science. Awo responded: “Metaphysical science is science, but not at all in the class of empirical science…Metaphysics is science. For instance, Aristotle calls metaphysics science of first principles. Metaphysics is beyond experience, and that is the meaning. The problem is that nobody talks about metaphysical science nowadays, only empirical science. So if African science is metaphysical science, then nobody should talk about African science. That is the point. So we have to follow the modern, universal conception of science”.
After dilating on a diverse number of subjects, Professor Makinde brings Awo to the question of traditional medicine. Pointing out that people like the Chinese and Indians, for instance, had developed their own forms of traditional medicine; he also related his own experience with his father who was a traditional medicine healer as he grew up as a child. Again, revealing his strongly scientific cast of mind, Awo while agreeing with much of what the professor said, stressed the need for caution saying that “I am interested in medicine and I am interested in traditional medicine, but the latter has not been scientifically verified in terms of cause and effect.
But I know that plants, herbs, have some potency because they are grown in the tropics (tropical countries like Nigeria). Some of the potency comes from energy. Number two, if the herbs are blended in correct proportion in the course of experiment, they can be more effective than a set of plants from Britain or a set of synthesized medicine. So that is my view…In traditional medicine, you can never tell when you will be given concocted medicine of incompatible ingredients that will constitute a poison. Please know that I am not against the use of herbs and herbal medicine. I have already told you that our herbs are very potent. So plants or herbs are alright but they must be mixed in certain proportion, correct proportion”.
On the question of magun that can purportedly kill a man that has sexual relations with a woman laced with the charm, the two men had an extensive and very lively exchange. Again, demonstrating his strong belief in scientific principles of testing phenomena and seeking empirical validity as a basis for belief, Awolowo believed that what was attributed to magun could indeed be the result of natural causes such as heart attack or exhaustion. Professor Makinde disagrees. He avers that “My point, therefore, is that for anybody to say that magun is not efficacious, without scientific proof through tests or experiments, is not to behave like a scientist. And to simply say that magun is not efficacious without having tested it is to me a very unscientific statement. It is at best an opinion that should be ignored for want of scientific proof. That is to say that our medical doctors have not been able to guarantee, with proof, that magun does not work so that we should not be afraid of the magun phenomenon anymore”.
But in Awo’s view, “The truth about magun is this. When a man has heart trouble, he can die while making love with any woman. I have known two cases for certain of those who were reported to have died of magun when, in actual fact, they died of heart attack right on top of women, having sex. A late Mr. X had heart trouble and the doctors advised him (you won’t hear this in public but I happen to know because I was close to him, to go and rest. So he went to Agege, the family had a farm there, and a house.
He went there to rest according to the doctor’s instruction. And he allowed one of his concubines to see him there. He had intercourse, and that was it he died on his concubine. Now, that will look like magun, but it was heart attack…Of course, that was what he loved, and that was killed him. The doctor asked him to rest, and he died working on his concubine. And the woman decided not to run away because she was known to be his confidant and the matter was just hushed up. But that was it. The man died of heart attack. He did not tumble three times, as people say, he just died”.
After further exchange of views on the subject, Awo submitted thus, “…but in the case of magun, because we don’t experiment over it, I don’t trust what people say about it. You yourself have said that nobody has provided a proof as to whether magun is efficacious or not. You have made your point on the basis of uncertainty of what will happen to you if you sleep with a woman laid with magun, but my own position is based on the fact that until scientific experiment shows that magun kills, I cannot be reasonably challenged if I say that what people call magun is probably heart attack. So, because people don’t experiment much in traditional medicine, I don’t trust the thing”.
On the issue of juju, native charms and witches, Awo surprisingly comes to the same conclusion as that of Professor Tam David-West, which we examined last week. But while David-West’s views seem to be predicated on his training as a scientist in the western tradition and a degree of abstract and logical reasoning, Awo came to his own position through practical experimentation and experience. Admitting freely that he dabbled into native juju practice as a young man to protect himself and defend his trading business, Awo said he later came to the conclusion that there was no reality to all claims about the efficacy of native charms and juju.
In his words, “As a young trader I had the best of people to help me defend myself against the kind of policeman Josiah was. Later, very much later, I discovered that it was all lies (Iro ni gbogbo e). At that time I was living in Ogunpa, Ibadan. There was a refuse dump near my house. I dumped all my medicine one night in that refuse dump – iwo (horn), igbadi, agadagodo, orisisrisi – and nobody dumped refuse there for two weeks as people were afraid of the various kinds of juju they saw there. They were afraid of juju and ran away. Iro ni gbogbo e patapata, ko si nkan nkan nibe. (It is all lies, there is nothing there in the juju to warrant running away from them). There is nothing there, even aje, oso (withces and wizards) that people talk about. It is all sakara. Nothing”.
For those like the scholars who attended the recent scientific conference on the phenomenon of witchcraft at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Appendix 111 to this book will make interesting and useful reading. It is the reprint of an article written by Chief Obafemi Awolowo and published in The West African Review, Liverpool, on 30th December, 1939, (pp30-32). In it he gives suggestions on how the field of African juju can become a terrain of useful scientific inquiry to discover its developmental potentials if any.
