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Nigerian Women Protest Ritual Killings, Fetishes and Forced Marriages to Traditional Gods

Groups of women in southern Nigeria have been protesting in front of government offices in Enugu State against the killing of women through "fetish activities" and forced marriages to traditional gods.

"Essentially these practices are very rare in occurrence. The population is mostly made up of Christians and Muslims. But what I suspect is going on is some kind of commercialization on part of the so-called animist priests, who have always been on the periphery – a collection of people who still indulge in some of these rituals. But most of these practices are not based on any profound beliefs," said Pastor Laolu Akande, executive director of Christian Association of Nigerian-Americans, in a phone interview with The Christian Post on Tuesday.

According to BBC News, the protests were held earlier this month as 11 local women have lost their lives because of such activities. The women were reportedly dressed in black and held palm leaves, declaring that forced marriages to traditional gods goes against articles in Nigeria's constitution.

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"We strongly appeal to Governor Sullivan Chime to look into the gruesome murders, investigate the cases with the aim of uncovering the perpetrators and bringing them to book," read a petition by the women, according to Nigerian newspaper Punch.

"We also appeal for outright ban of any deity from forced marriage of our women as it violates sections 34 (1), 35 (1) and 42 (1) of the 1999 Constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria and Africa charter on human and peoples' rights."

In one recent case, a chief priest allegedly forced the daughter of a deceased man to marry him after claiming that a deity killed her father.

Some of the controversial beliefs include human sacrifice bringing about riches or job security, and human body parts bringing prestige in the afterlife.

Animists have previously targeted Christian churches. Worthy News reported in 2006 that a crowd of traditional animists severely beat two pastors and destroyed their properties for "making gods angry" with church services.

The leader of the worshippers of the African traditional religion (Oba), Williams Akindale, reportedly said that church services aggrieved animists during their annual Okute festival, because "since time immemorial, tradition demands that during the celebrations of festival, there should not be any beating of drums, but the churches have defied this tradition during this period."

While the majority of Nigeria's population is mostly divided between Christians and Muslims, around 10 percent hold indigenous beliefs, the CIA Factbook states, a figure which was supported by Akande in his interview with CP.

The CANAN executive director insisted that such ritualistic practices are driven more by material gains than any profound belief, and said that in general there isn't a serious conflict between Christians and animists.

"In instances where you have a political godfather sponsoring someone for an executive office, [they] try to secure their loyalty, so the godfather participates in some ritual practice where they swear oaths to all kinds of stuff."

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