THE REBRANDING OF THE AFRICAN SHAMAN

By Akin Ojumu

You are living in the past if you imagine that Africa’s shamans, sorcerers, babalawos, dibias, and other practitioners of the occult are still hiding inside thatched-roof huts in dusty villages, surrounded by calabashes, animal skins, cowrie shells, and smoking pots of herbal concoctions.

The witchdoctors have modernized and the native doctors have evolved.

As Nigerians would say, dem don shine eye. They have studied the religious marketplace, discovered the commercial power of Christian branding, and exchanged the village shrine for the Church auditorium. 

The old altar has been replaced by a glittering stage. The incantation is now called a “prophetic declaration.” Divination has been renamed “the word of knowledge.” Spirit consultation has become “entering the supernatural realm.” What was once performed in the darkness of a forest shrine is now livestreamed in high definition beneath flashing lights and accompanied by a worship band.

These practitioners of darkness have not abandoned their ancient trade; they have merely repackaged it for a Christian audience.

Their rebranding is complete. The raffia skirt has given way to the designer suit. The amulet is hidden beneath the clerical collar. The bare feet have been fitted with polished Italian shoes. Instead of carrying a carved staff through the village square, the modern shaman carries a microphone across a marble platform while credulous churchgoers scream, fall, shake, and surrender their money.

The costume has changed, but the spirit remains the same.

Biblically, Christianity is founded upon the public revelation of God in Jesus Christ and the written testimony of Scripture. The Christian minister is therefore called to preach the Word, proclaim the Gospel, exalt Christ, and submit every claim to the authority of Scripture. He is not a spiritual technician, a mystical power broker, a celestial travel guide, or a mediator of secret knowledge. He does not manipulate spiritual forces, manufacture supernatural spectacles, or present himself as the indispensable channel through whom others must access God.

Whenever a preacher builds his ministry around visions, mystical encounters, secret revelations, supernatural power, ritualistic performances, and extravagant claims of spiritual authority, he is not functioning like a shepherd of Christ’s flock. He is behaving like a shaman who has learned Christian vocabulary.

Julius Ekweozor, the self-styled “pastor” who runs the Julius Ekweozor Ministries and Restoration Charismatic Ministries International, represents this evolution from the traditional village shaman to the contemporary Church shaman.

The shrine has been renovated. The idols have been given Christian names. The incantations now end with “in Jesus’ name.” And the witchdoctor is wearing a designer suit and genuine leather shoes made in Italy.

Standing before an assembly of spiritually bewitched people—men and women who presumably believe they are attending a Christian worship service—Julius Ekweozor declared:

“My sister, you people are five in your home, and nobody is married. In the beginning, it was not so; an enemy has done this. How is it that you hold vigils in order to marry, while the stepmother who tied you has never held a vigil? Does that mean Satan is more powerful than God?

“The difference is this: you pray to break through, but she pays to break through. You do not merely pray to break through; you pay to break through. There is something your mother’s children must do before the altar that will activate a reaction in the spirit.

“No spirit will give attention to a man with empty hands. Summoning a spirit is what we do in prayer. And when a spirit is summoned, that spirit comes with a desire to consume something, because men are made to feed spirits.

“Some of you have angels who are interested in your battles, but those angels are weak. There is no food on the altar for them to eat. Every spirit feeds on blood—every spirit. You are saying, ‘Arise, O Lord, and let my enemies be scattered,’ but the spirit says, ‘There is no blood to fuel my strength.’

“Men cannot prosper or have anything in their hands because they have not brought anything before a spirit.”

This is not Christianity. It is undisguised occultism wearing a clerical costume.

It is utterly diabolical, blatantly profane, and brazenly sacrilegious. It is a desecration of the pulpit, a debasement of the visible Church, and an audacious assault upon the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The God of the Bible is not a starving tribal deity who must be fed before He can act. Angels are not famished spiritual mercenaries whose strength depends upon human offerings. Prayer is not the summoning of spirits. The blood of Christ is not supernatural fuel poured into celestial beings so that they can fight human battles. And Christian giving is not a ritual payment offered to manipulate invisible powers.

What Ekweozor describes is not biblical prayer but spirit invocation. It is not Christian worship but occult transaction. It is not faith in the sovereign God but an attempt to bargain with the unseen world.

Tragically, the substance of this teaching has become commonplace within large sections of contemporary Nigerian Christianity. Similar transactional ideas appear in the teachings of prominent religious figures, from older celebrity preachers such as E. A. Adeboye and David Oyedepo to younger personalities such as Jerry Eze, Arome Osayi, and Joshua Selman. The terminology may differ, the stagecraft may be more polished, and the auditoriums may be larger, but the underlying religious machinery is disturbingly similar: altars, spiritual transactions, sacrificial seeds, bloodline battles, territorial spirits, generational curses, portals, dimensions, ancestral forces, and payments demanded to “activate” supernatural intervention.

Julius Ekweozor may not possess the gravitas, the international visibility or the institutional influence of the aforementioned Nigeria’s celebrity preachers, but he is a revealing microcosm of a much wider theological corruption.

This is what Christianity has increasingly become in Nigeria: a syncretistic religious system in which the historic distinction between biblical Christianity and African traditional religion has been deliberately erased.

The beliefs and practices of the pagan shrine have been imported wholesale into the professing Church of the Almighty God. Ancient occultic rituals have been repackaged in biblical vocabulary. The names of traditional deities may no longer be openly invoked, but the worldview of the shrine remains firmly intact.

Ala, Obatala, Amadioha, Osun, Sango, Ogun, ancestral spirits, personal spiritual guardians, and the manipulative rituals associated with traditional divination have been cosmetically rechristened as “altars,” “angels,” “prophetic directions,” “spiritual principles,” “mysteries,” “dimensions,” and “kingdom technologies.”

The shrine has not disappeared. It has merely acquired a sound system, a choir, stage lighting, and a Christian signboard.

The babalawo has exchanged his ritual garments for an expensive designer suit. The incantation has been renamed “prophetic declaration.” The divination ritual is now called “discernment.” The sacrificial payment has become a “seed.” The fetish object has become a “point of contact.” The invocation of spirits has been rebranded as “prayer.”

This is not the transformation of paganism by the Gospel. It is the corruption of Christianity by paganism.

It is syncretism of the most poisonous kind: the language of Scripture emptied of its biblical meaning and filled with the theology of the occult.

And this is déjà vu. We have seen this spiritual rebellion before.

Throughout Scripture, whenever the people of God abandoned His revealed Word and blended true worship with the customs of surrounding nations, judgment followed. Israel fashioned a golden calf and still called the celebration “a feast to the LORD.” The northern kingdom retained the language of Israel’s God while erecting counterfeit altars. The prophets of Baal adopted religious spectacle, bloodletting, frenzy, and manipulation in a desperate attempt to summon supernatural power.

God condemned it all.

The great empires of history were not destroyed because they lacked religious enthusiasm. They were destroyed beneath the weight of their idolatry, violence, pride, injustice, and rebellion against God.

The contemporary Church is now repeating the same ancient apostasy: abandoning the sufficiency of Christ, rejecting the authority of Scripture, and prostituting itself before strange gods while continuing to sing Christian songs.

This is spiritual adultery.

It is whoring after other gods beneath the banner of Jesus Christ.

Anyone who cares about the eternal condition of his soul must take seriously the warning of the Apostle Paul:

2 Corinthians 6:17

“Therefore come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.”

Come out from among them!!!!

Do not finance them. Do not defend them. Do not sit under their teaching. Do not entrust your soul to spiritual merchants who transform the House of God into an occult marketplace.

Flee from every altar upon which Christ’s finished work is treated as insufficient. Flee from every preacher who turns prayer into spirit summoning, giving into ritual payment, and the blood of Christ into mystical fuel.

The Gospel calls sinners to repent and trust in Jesus Christ—not to feed spirits, empower angels, activate altars, or purchase breakthroughs.

Christ alone is sufficient. His blood alone atones. His Word alone governs the Church.