Women and Witchcraft Accusations in Colonial Nigeria

ABSTRACT In terms of witchcraft accusations, Nigeria occupies the unenviable position as one of the most female-gender unfriendly nations of the world. To date, witchcraft accusations are still part of Nigerian daily life experiences. However, this article emphasizes witchcraft accusation during the colonial period in Nigeria. The available demographic evidence of witchcraft stigmatizations points mainly at women. This article relies therefore on fragments of sources from Nigeria from four major national archives—those at Ibadan, Kaduna, and Enugu. In addition, a body of existing knowledge on the subject has been collated, analyzed, and adduced in writing this article using the descriptive method of analysis.